The Transportation Pilot is a joint collaborative effort of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, TN-ITS and the ELF project. The JRC is the technical custodian of INSPIRE.

INSPIRE was primarily developed for the environmental sector. This year the JRC, through its EULF (European Union Location Framework) project, initiates several Pilots to demonstrate the usability of INSPIRE in other sectors. For the Transportation Pilot the JRC has sought collaboration with TN-ITS. An obvious choice, as the TN-ITS approach and specification are already highly aligned with INSPIRE.

The Pilot will run for about one year. Phase 1 of the Pilot sees active involvement of TN-ITS members Norway (NPRA), Sweden (Swedish Transport Administration), and ITS map providers HERE and TomTom. Phase 1 will focus on two countries that are relatively advanced in terms of the TN-ITS framework, Norway and Sweden. In Norway the TN-ITS framework will be set up, in Sweden the scope of the existing implementation, which remains from the ROSATTE project, will be extended. The ELF side of the Pilot will deal with the use of National Mapping Agency data for the purpose of Transport.

For Phase 2, starting in March 2015, implementation of the TN-ITS framework is envisaged in two countries that are less advanced in terms of having a national road database and maintenance of road attributes in such database.

EULF is a concept for an EU-wide, cross-sector interoperability framework for the exchange and sharing of location data and services, and the mission of the EULF project is to test this concept. It involves bringing INSPIRE, which was initially developed for the environmental sector, to other sectors, and demonstrating its relevance for other sectors. The testing will be done in the form of pilot implementations.

The ELF project (European Location Framework; ELF not to be confused with EULF) is a three-year EU-funded project aiming at delivering a pan-European cloud platform and web services building on INSPIRE to enable access to harmonised data in cross-border applications.

Original author: Kees Wevers