Following up on the recent revision of the RTTI Delegated Regulation, some of ERTICO’s CCAM-related projects and platforms for data exchange are working to meet the regulation’s objectives. Under the umbrella of the NAPCORE project, the TN-ITS data exchange standard has been included in the latest update of the RTTI. Additionally, our TM 2.0 platform fosters the discussion to align road operators and service providers.
The 2010 Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Directive established a solid framework for the harmonised deployment and use of ITS in the European Union, based on uniform specifications and standards. The work carried out by ERTICO, and its Partnership is keeping pace with the latest EU Directives and Regulations and providing significant input towards meeting their objectives.
A number of our EU-funded projects and ERTICO-innovation platforms are directly aligned with the goals of some of the Delegated Regulations stemming from the ITS Directive such as eCall and the Safety-Related Traffic Information (SRTI) Delegated Regulation, the latter through the Data for Road Safety (DFRS) platform. ERTICO’s involvement in the NAPCORE project and our leading role in the TN-ITS platform is also helping in a significant way to achieve the objectives of the Real-Time Traffic Information (RTTI) Delegated Regulation. Furthermore, TM 2.0’s contribution has been instrumental in shaping some of the provisions of the revised RTTI Delegated Regulation.
A renewed focus on RTTI
As part of the ITS Directive, the RTTI Delegated Regulation ensures the exchange and use of good quality data across borders in the EU for the availability of real-time traffic services to end users. The rapid evolution of the industry towards automation and increased data flows led to the revision of the Regulation in 2022, seeking to enhance the accessibility, exchange, reuse and update of data required to provide high-quality and continuous real-time traffic information services. The updates include the expansion of the geographical scope, the inclusion of new data categories while boosting cooperation. The regulation also requires the data to be machine-readable, publicly accessible and in real-time, while also stipulating its use under the FRAND principle (Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory).
A snapshot of the RTTI Delegated Regulation
The NAPCORE project, with 33 Beneficiaries covering 26 EU Member States and the UK, Norway and Switzerland, provides a network at the European level, to harmonise and coordinate data exchange by facilitating the development of a digital infrastructure for cross-border data accessibility. The EU and associated participating Member States and road authorities upload their authoritative and regular data on the National Access Points (NAPs), coordinated by the project.
Last February, some of the NAPCORE beneficiaries and Advisory Board partners initiated a discussion among traffic management stakeholders, based on use cases collected from European cities, on the challenges facing public authorities in terms of traffic management and the exchange of RTTI. Private service providers such as TomTom and Google, as well as Be-Mobile, held a workshop in April to discuss how best to address these challenges and to share important information on technical and business levels. The aim was to help raise awareness of the implications of business models and encourage collaboration. The TM 2.0 Stakeholder collaboration levels, agreed upon within the Innovation Platform since 2016, have contributed to the concepts of collaboration and data exchange between service providers and public authorities under the revised RTTI. The TM 2.0 Platform itself is also refining the Levels of Collaboration in traffic management, taking a step further in establishing the Mobility Network Management as an important element for the mobility stakeholders to reach the ultimate Level (4) of this real-time traffic information exchange.
“TM 2.0 as the thought-leader ERTICO platform for interactive traffic and mobility management, aims to stimulate data exchange from all available sources and stakeholders through an integrated information and control loop. This system operates on the principles of co-opetition and trust among all traffic and mobility stakeholders, promoting a close partnership between public authorities, service providers and other traffic and mobility actors. The TM 2.0 Innovation Platform promotes mutual understanding among mobility stakeholders and ensures consistency in the information between vehicles within the mobility network and Traffic Management and Control Centres,” says Dr Johanna Tzanidaki, Chair of the TM 2.0 ERTICO Innovation Platform and Chief Innovation Officer at ERTICO.
ERTICO’s TN-ITS innovation platform, which continuously maintains and upgrades the coding standard and its deployment in the EU, is also making a real impact towards meeting the Delegated Regulation requirement of the revised RTTI and its use cases. The TN-ITS CEN Technical Specification 17268 focusing on static road data, including roadworks or temporary closures of road sections or lanes, has been identified as a vital component and included in the updated Delegated Regulation. Its inclusion leads to more safety, especially in urban areas. In the interests of road safety, RTTI also emphasises the need to provide accurate information on speed limit changes during maintenance and roadworks. TN-ITS is addressing several use cases regarding RTTI, including speed limits, as was the focus of the ISA-FIT project, to ensure standards are met in supplying up-to-date speed limit data. The recent Declaration of Lisbon signed with DATEX II will enable TN-ITS to look at new use cases and at the near-term future market demands.
“The ‘Declaration of Lisbon’ is a new milestone in modern data exchange in today’s mobility data space. The DATEX II alignment and close collaboration with TN-ITS will enable more future applications and services, responding to market demand, while ensuring legacy implementations. A stronger scientific base for the integrated standard will offer clarity in data exchange, at the same time progressing on data quality, integrity, sovereignty and trust between stakeholders, in line with the common European mobility data space design principles,” says Frank Daems, Senior Project Manager of Innovation and Deployment at ERTICO.
Currently, TM2.0 and TN-ITS are collaborating to bring together the TM 2.0 cooperation levels with the TN ITS use cases. Follow up on both platforms’ websites to stay tuned to the next steps in their interesting work on RTTI compliance and beyond.
