For years, speeding has been recognised as one of the main contributing factors to deaths on our roads. Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) will have a huge impact on traffic safety. TN-ITS GO (Transport Network Intelligent Transport Systems) is a Connecting Europe Facility project that contributes to ISA’s success by deploying standardized advanced exchange and update mechanisms for digital map data. TN-ITS GO is planned to be a key part of the digital infrastructure of 15 European Member States and road operators by 2022. ISA’s planned introduction in all new cars sold is currently the subject of an EU proposed law.
Map data greatly contributes to ISA since safe driving speeds depend not just on legal speed limits, but also on other elements such as road topology and curvature, road and traffic conditions, and are often lower than the legal speed limit. Digital maps are able to reflect legal speeds on sections of the road network where implicit restrictions apply instead of sign-posted ones.
The TN-ITS platform was set-up in 2013 to facilitate and foster the pan-European harmonized exchange of modifications in road data between road authorities as trusted and quality data providers, and map makers and other parties as data users. TN-ITS-enabled map data guides the driver in an accurate way towards maintaining the legal speed.
TN-ITS services are already active in Finland, Norway and Sweden with a total data update rate of more than 1 million per year.
“I’m very encouraged by the progress made in the implementation of TN-ITS by the Member States, as well as by the recent release of the CEN Technical Standard. ISA is another important service application that can rely on the accurate map data assured by TN-ITS mechanisms. It is another step forward in making roads safer and saving lives”, says Stephen T’Siobbel, president of TN-ITS platform.
Road Authorities publish changes of road data as part of their Static Digital Infrastructure data maintenance. Mapmakers retrieve, verify and integrate these changes in their databases and bring this to map users. Drivers can benefit from up-to-date fresh map data that will enable ISA or will support driver/traveller information systems on any platform, including mobile devices.
TN-ITS with its focus on static map data, is compliant and coherent with other map data-related initiatives aimed at dynamic data information exchange, related to real time information with very short lifetimes.
On 10th January, the Transport Committee of the European Parliament voted to uphold the Commission’s proposal to introduce ISA on all new cars and trucks but the final say will rest with the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, which is scheduled to vote on the issue around mid-February.
Given the importance of saving lives on the road, the TN-ITS stakeholder platform encourages every Member State of Europe to join and implement this TN-ITS harmonized mechanism based upon the newly published European CEN Techical Specification (TS 17268).
For more information, visit https://www.tn-its.eu and https://tn-its.eu/tn-its-go or please contact d.coviello@mail.ertico.com or c.wilson@mail.ertico.com.
