Lisbon, 24 May 2023. The National Access Point Coordination Organisation for Europe (NAPCORE) takes one step further in data standards harmonisation. The signing of the Declaration of Lisbon during the ITS European Congress furthers their pursuit for alignment and initiates the merging of TN-ITS and DATEX II standards.
The NAPCORE project seeks to coordinate and harmonise more than 30 mobility data platforms across Europe, fostering a seamless network to enhance road efficiency and safety. This ambitious goal also aims at aligning data exchange standards. The Declaration of Lisbon represents a significant milestone for this purpose, where the TN-ITS and DATEX II standards take it to the next level and commit to merging.
“When we started the NAPCORE project with the aim to increase cooperation with the Member States, the idea was also to bring together different communities working on different aspects. This translates today into a cooperation agreement and, even more than that, the merging of two important initiatives to bring a single product which, in the end, will facilitate and increase the reuse of data for the benefit of end-users or road users”, addresses Gilles Carabin, Policy Officer at the European Commission.
“NAPCORE was founded to standardise and harmonise data standards. In the beginning, we didn’t dare to hope that, instead of just aligning, DATEX II and TN-ITS would agree to merge into one standard. it’s a huge win for NAPCORE, and I’m very happy it’s happening”, states Timo Hoffmann, NAPCORE Secretary General.
TN-ITS and DATEX II will collaboratively develop, deploy, and govern the integration of their technical standards, streamlining user adoption and fostering engagement among stakeholders in alignment with relevant EU policies.
“There are two aspects of the mobility market. On the data providers side or public authorities, it is now clearer in which format to provide data, and, on the data user side, it enables more automation, because we are talking about machine-readable data, so data then can be used automatically in the systems”, expresses Christian Kleine, TN-ITS President.
“The value of the merger of the data standard is having one language over the entire data distribution system in Europe from the perspective of the road operators. That we have the same language for map updates for dynamic navigation and safety messages. There is no ambiguity anymore. We speak the same language throughout Europe”, highlights Bard de Vries, Chair of the DATEX II Change Management Board.
