Today, 15 EU member states implement the EU standard TN-ITS mechanism, ensuring qualitative and trusted data feeds to enable accurate and up-to date digital maps.

 

The UK DfT (Department for Transport) joined this activity via the EU CEF project TN-ITS Go, started in January 2018. Now, after only 2.5 years, the UK is one of the leading implementation partners, integrating Ordnance Survey’s (OS) MasterMap Highways Network Road Routing and Asset Management Information with local authority speed limit data with future plans to include TRO (Traffic Regulation Order) data from all local authorities.

Following on from a successful TRO Data Discovery project in 2018 led by GeoPlace, and the creation of a spatial TRO data model, the DfT are looking at a programme of work to test the creation and publication of TROs with local authorities. The unique TRO (Traffic Regulation Orders) data model will help local authorities standardise their data in a suitable and consistent format, whilst benefiting from an immediate dissemination using this model. TN-ITS is a data publication feed from this TRO data discovery model.

In many EU Member States, TN-ITS service implementation is hampered by the non-availability of digital centralised road attribute data, mainly accessible at a local level, all in different formats and database tools. The UK, with a complex devolved and delegated authority structure, has also struggled like most of the other member states, to provide quality data that road users require in their digital map applications. The DfT, assisted by Ordnance Survey, GeoPlace and wider industry are taking pro-active steps towards developing and deploying the necessary supporting tools to overcome organisational hurdles.

“Thanks to these new tools, the UK is becoming one of the  front runners on TN-ITS and CAD implementations” says Mr Suku Phull, DfT’s ITS specialist, “The UK has shown an impressive step forward implementing a web demonstrator which is publicly available and opens up  the data repository API, enabling immediate access to the relevant data.”

For more information about the GeoPlace TRO Discovery outcomes please visit:

https://www.geoplace.co.uk/trodiscovery

Ordnance Survey Highways Products please visit:
https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/mastermap-highways