Location Referencing Standards published

Date: 3/3/2009

Sources: www.iso.org/; ITS Standardisation Activities in Japan

The ISO standard, ISO 17572:2008 Parts 1-3, "Location Referencing for Geographic Databases", has now been published and is available for purchase from the ISO website.

The standard is concerned with ensuring compatible referencing of locations between different geographical databases; it enables locations to be identified accurately when information is exchanged between different applications or systems with different geographic databases. The standard’s abstract says:

“ISO 17572 specifies Location Referencing Methods (LRM) that describe locations in the context of geographic databases and will be used to locate transport-related phenomena in an encoder system as well as in the decoder side. It defines what is meant by such objects, and describes the reference in detail, including whether or not components of the reference are mandatory or optional, and their characteristics.”

The standard presents two location referencing methods in parts 2 and 3. The first method “Pre-coded Location Referencing”, assumes common pre-coded tables, such as the Japanese Vehicle Information and Communication System (VICS) or the equivalent European Traffic Message Channel (TMC). The second method, “Dynamic Location References”, varies in real-time to deal with differences at the time of decoding; this has evolved from the European “AGORA-C” proposal, developed in the European Commission’s Fifth Framework AGORA Project (implementAtion of Global lOcation Referencing Approach). The abstract for the three individual parts is provided below.

“ISO 17572-1:2008 specifies the following general LRM related sections:

o        Requirements to a Location Referencing Method

o        Conceptual Data Model for Location Referencing Methods

o        Inventory of Location Referencing Methods

o        Examples of Conceptual Data Model Use

o        Description of selected UML Elements

o        Comparison of Definitions with ISO/TC 211

o        Introduction to the TPEG Physical Format.

ISO 17572-2:2008 specifies the pre-coded location referencing method, comprising:

o        Specification of pre-coded location references (pre-coded profile)

o        Logical format for VICS link location

o        TPEG physical format for ALERT-C-location references

o        TPEG physical format for Korean node-link ID references.

ISO 17572-3:2008 specifies the dynamic location referencing method, comprising:

o        Attributes and encoding rules

o        Logical data modelling

o        TPEG physical format specification for dynamic location references

o        Coding guidelines for dynamic location references

o        Compressed data format specification.”

For further information on each of these location referencing methods, see the ITS Radar International November Newsletter.

ITS Radar International will continue to monitor developments

Keywords: Geographic information, Standard, Traffic information