The Traveller Information Services Association, a New Organisation for TTI

Date: 29/4/2008

Source: ITS International Jan/Feb 2008

A new non-profit association, The Traveller Information Services Association (TISA), has been set up to facilitate an international framework for market-driven, co-ordinated implementation of traffic and travel information services and products based on existing standards, such as RDS-TMC and TPEG. TISA is the amalgamation of three organisations: the TMC Forum, the TPEG Forum and the Mobile Info Project.

The TISA mission is to exploit the best of the TMC and TPEG technologies and to be the focal point and authority for traffic and travel information worldwide, providing a single platform to discuss new requirements and develop future standards and services. Members include the key players within the fields of TMC, TPEG and traffic information from a variety of sectors including: service providers, receiver manufacturers, car manufacturers, map database suppliers, public authorities, broadcasters and other organisations.

The TMC Forum was founded in 1997 and over the past decade has supported the development of TMC standards.  According to their website,

“The Traffic Message Channel (TMC) is a specific application of the FM Radio Data System (RDS) used for broadcasting real-time traffic and weather information. Data messages are received silently and decoded by a TMC-equipped car radio or navigation system, and delivered to the driver in a variety of ways. The most common of these is a TMC-enabled navigation system that can offer dynamic route guidance - alerting the driver of a problem on the planned route and calculating an alternative route to avoid the incident.”

Working Group 4, Traffic and Travel Information (TTI), of CEN TC278 manages the TMC standards EN ISO 14819, parts 1, 2, 3 and 6 and ENV 12313-4 as well. For more information see the Standards Spreadsheet.

The TPEG Forum was a similar organisation promoting the development of TPEG standards. The forum started in 2002 as a partnership of broadcasters and the consumer industry, funded by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The EBU website defines Transport Protocol Experts Group (TPEG) as the following:

“TPEG technology has been developed to facilitate the delivery of information messages within the multimedia broadcasting environment from service providers to end-users. Simultaneous delivery of these messages by various bearers, with minimal adaptation to the bearers is a key to the success of TPEG technology. The underlying principles of TPEG technology require that hierarchically structured messages may be delivered in such a way that client devices are able to decode and filter the content to provide language independent presentation either directly for human use, or for agent systems.”

The TPEG Forum website says that TPEG technology “provides the tool-kit for delivering all types of Traffic and Travel Information content by any required delivery channel, e.g. Digital Radio (DAB), Internet, Digital TV (DVB), GPRS and Wi-Fi etc.” The key features of TPEG are:

o        Both human content and machine-readable content;

o        Language independent;

o        A common location referencing to allow any client device to take advantage of the content with no prior installation of a location database;

o        Multi-modal travel information

o        Works regardless of location or client type in use.

TPEG technology is now specified in a suite of worldwide international standards that have been adopted by both ISO TC204, (WG10) and CEN TC278 (WG4). TPEG Binary Standards, TS 18234- parts 1-6 (published) and 7-10 (under development), were originally developed for Digital Radio. TPEGML Standards, TS 24530- parts 1-4 (published) and 5-7 (under development), have also been developed for Internet bearers & message generation using XML. See the Standards Matrix for further information.

The inaugural general meeting of TISA was held on 21st November 2007 in Berlin. Following the launch event, TISA’s first activities will be a series of working meetings to organise its activities. TISA’s secretariat will hosted by ERTICO – ITS Europe, although it will be financially independent, with a small joining fee and an annual membership fee initially set at 4200 Euros per member company. James Burgess of ERTICO is the TISA Coordinator.

ITS Radar International will continue to monitor developments.

Key words: Traffic centre, Traffic information, Standard