Deployment of Interoperable Cross-Border Multimodal Traveller Information in Central Europe

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1 Transport Research Arena 2014, Paris Deployment of Interoperable Cross-Border Multimodal Traveller Information in Central Europe Gerhard Menzel a, Martin Böhm a* a AustriaTech - Federal Agency for Technological Measures Ltd, Vienna, Austria Abstract Since October 2012 the deployment of interoperable cross-border Multimodal Traveller Information (MTI) has started in Central Europe. Partners from five different countries, namely Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy and Slovakia have committed themselves to deploy a harmonised cross-border MTI service. At the end of the year 2014 the harmonised cross-border MTI service will be operative in all involved countries. The participating partners mainly come from public institutions and transport operators that cooperate to improve their national and regional traveller information systems. This paper presents the applied concept for harmonised traffic data and information exchange for the deployment of cross-border MTI services. Keywords: Traffic Information, Multimodal Traveller Information Services, Digital Maps, Graph Integration Platform GIP, Interoperability, Intelligent Transport Systems Résumé Depuis octobre 2012, le déploiement de systèmes interopérables d'information multimodale (MTI: Multimodal Traveller Information) des voyageurs transfrontaliers a commencé en Europe centrale. Des partenaires de cinq différents pays, à savoir l'autriche, la République tchèque, la Hongrie, l'italie et la Slovaquie se sont engagés à déployer un service MTI transfrontalier harmonisé. À la fin de l'année 2014, ce service de MTI sera opérationnel dans tous les pays concernés. Les partenaires impliqués proviennent principalement des institutions publiques et les opérateurs de transport qui travaillent ensemble pour améliorer leurs systèmes nationaux et régionaux d'information voyageur. Cet article présente le concept appliqué pour l échange de données de trafic harmonisées et pour l échange d'information lors du déploiement des services MTI transfrontaliers. Mots-clé: information trafic, Multimodal services d'information aux voyageurs, les cartes numériques, Graphique plateforme d'intégration GIP, l'interopérabilité, systèmes de transport intelligents * Tel.: ; Fax: address: gerhard.menzel@austriatech.at, martin.boehm@austriatech.at Website:

2 G. Menzel, M. Böhm / Transport Research Arena 2014, Paris 2 1. Introduction The provision of interoperable and multimodal traveller information services is seen as major contribution to ensure mobility in and between cities and regions, besides they address the challenges of modal split, increasing congestion and greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector (European Commission, 2011). Based on these presumptions various European cities, regions and transport operators have started to provide journey planners for public transport as well as motorized individual transport in order to serve their citizens and travellers. An important basis for multimodal traveller information services are the underlying digital maps and graphs from the different transport modes (passenger car traffic, public transport, cycling, walking) to enable multimodal routing and interchange information. For example the Vienna Region started to create a multimodal journey planner, available on the web as well as on smart phones (e.g. which is based on the Austrian wide digital graph system known as the GIP - Graph Integration Platform (Mandl-Mair, 2012). As the name already implies the GIP is a platform that links different digital maps (graphs using different various reference systems) to a common intermodal transport graph according to uniform rules which have been defined in the Austrian GIP Standard (FSV, 2012). The GIP can be used as basis for transport information, transport management and traffic control across all administrative boundaries. However, systems like the Austrian GIP and similar systems from the neighbouring countries of Austria like for instance KIRA which is the Transport Information System & Database in Hungary (EDITS Project, 2012b) are still mostly based on regional data and systems that only provide information within the area of the respective cities and regions - therefore there is a need for cross-border (between regional borders as well as across countries) information and solutions for different transport modes. Fig. 1: Involved Countries One of the initiatives currently dealing with this need is the EDITS (European Digital Traffic Infrastructure Network for Intelligent Transport Systems) deployment project an European Union co-funded project under the umbrella of the Central Europe Programme which aims to deploy and operate cross-border multimodal travel

3 G. Menzel, M. Böhm / Transport Research Arena 2014, Paris information based on harmonized traffic data and information gathered on transnational level (EDITS Project, 2012a). The EDITS project has been kicked-off in October 2012 and involves partners that mainly come from public institutions and transport operators that work together to improve their national and regional traveller information systems within five different central European countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia) by exchanging traveller information related data. 2. The EDITS Concept EDITS focuses on providing interoperable and multimodal traveller and information services based on a harmonised platform for data as well as information exchange. First of all it is important to highlight that the EDITS concept is not based on the principle of setting up a new central multimodal journey planner within the involved EU member states. This is especially due to the fact that a lot of structures and systems are already existing in the national administrations the challenges now are to improve, update and harmonize the existing systems in a common way to finally ensure the provision of seamless cross-border services to the single traveller The EDITS Multimodal Traveller Information (MTI) Service Framework a modular approach As the name Multimodal Traveller Information (MTI) Service already implies traveller information shall be deployed for all transport modes. Multimodality in the EDITS context means that the provided traveller information to the end users (pre- and on trip) will support the traveller with different travel options for all transport modes, which are defined in the following transport mode categories: 1. Individual Transport: Covers information for all transport modes that can be used by travellers to move through the traffic network individually, including both motorized individual traffic on the road network (e.g. by motorcycle, car, HGVs) and non-motorized individual traffic (e.g. walking or cycling). 2. Public Transport: Covers information for all transport modes which are publicly available to travel through the traffic network, e.g. by train, subway, bus etc. 3. Intermodal Transport: Covers information for a combination of more than one specific transport mode, e.g. car and public transport or bike and public transport. Fig. 2: The EDITS MTI Service

4 G. Menzel, M. Böhm / Transport Research Arena 2014, Paris 4 Based on the transport mode categories single EDITS Modules are defined which are all part of the EDITS MTI Service (compare Figure 3). In other words this means that within EDITS there exists one defined EDITS MTI Service that shall be deployed within Central Europe to support travellers before and during their trip with options and information on all transport modes - however, the involved stakeholders (public administrations, service providers, end-users) within the domain of traveller information provision are usually quite heterogeneous as they come from different organisations with different focus areas. Therefore, this modular approach with the definition of specific EDITS Modules based on the transport mode categories will ensure the required flexibility when it comes to real deployment based on the regional existing systems and services (EDITS Project, 2013). The EDITS Modules can be regarded as a toolbox to pick from to define the EDITS MTI end-user services which are deployed in demonstration pilots within the regions until end of 2014 depending on the data availability of the participating operators. This means that one region might demonstrate traveller information for end-users coming from the EDITS Modules 1.1 (Static Road Information), 1.2 (Dynamic Road Information), 2.1. (Static Public Transport Information) and 2.2 (Dynamic Public Transport Information) while other partners might focus only on 2.1. due to lack of individual transport data and lack of dynamic public transport data. The more modules are provided within the regionally defined EDITS MTI Service the more multimodal traffic information can be provided to end-users within the demonstration areas and beyond them shared through the common data exchange interfaces Exchange of data and information between the regions The EDITS partners have recognized the Austrian GIP (Graph Integration Platform) approach and have decided to pursue a system architecture that follows similar principles. Hereby, the development of consistent multimodal transport graphs within the single regions based on common specifications plays an important role as the very basis for the creation and adaptation of partner specific enhanced ITS applications. As shown in Figure 1 these regional independent transport graphs, known as the EDITS-GIPs, are built on existing systems and content databases within the regions. The local EDITS-GIPs integrate the existing data pools into a common EDITS-GIP format that follows the specifications that have been developed within the EDITS project. The responsibilities and data ownership always remains within the regions. Hence, the localized regional EDITS-GIPs may look quite different in the involved regions as they are mostly built on existing and proprietary systems (e.g. KIRA in Hungary and the Austrian Graph Integration Platform GIP) and are therefore merely translating the available content into a common form that is understood by all involved parties. The EDITS-GIP format is therefore the interface for the exchange of GIS data between the EDITS source systems (GIP in Austria, KIRA in Hungary, DYNAVIX in Czech Republic, etc.). It covers the GIS data of transport infrastructure (for individual transport and public transport) as well as transport data for individual transport. The EDITS-GIP Format consists on the one hand out of data files (.SHP files,.csv files) on the other hand out of Lookup-Tables (LUT) that describe value domains for attributes which are common for all EDITSpartners. Based on the mapping the EDITS source systems to the EDITS-GIP format the regional EDITS-GIPs are set-up which represent the GIS data that is exchanged among the involved actors. Since a cross-border MTI end-user service requires more data to be exchanged besides the underlying GIS infrastructure information the second main component within the EDITS concept is an EDITS-GIP-Interface for commonly agreed data and information exchange between the single regions. The specified EDITS-GIP- Interface will allow the exchange of various kinds of data next to the GIS data needed for the provision of enduser services (e.g. public transport information, time table data, road related information etc.). These specifications are based on existing European and national standards (like the Austrian GIP Standard, DATEX II, DINO, etc.) and provide the necessary information next to the GIS data. The specifications will be openly available in order to foster the deployment of cross-border exchange of data and information within the regions as well cross-border within Europe beyond the project s life time.

5 G. Menzel, M. Böhm / Transport Research Arena 2014, Paris Fig. 3: The EDITS Concept 2.3. Provision of multimodal traveller information services a decentralized approach In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the EDITS approach of exchanging data and information several enduser services will be deployed in 2013 and 2014 resulting in demonstrations in the second half of This will be done through two main services: web based interoperable and intermodal pre-trip information and on trip services which will provide information to the end-users. Furthermore, traffic management will also be tackled within EDITS, applying the same exchange principle. An important conceptual paradigm for the EDITS approach is that the responsibilities and provision of the multimodal traveller information services remain in the responsibilities of the single regions. This means that the involved parties are enhancing existing (whenever available) systems through the additional information received from the exchange of data through the regional EDITS-GIP and EDITS-GIP interface within a completely decentralized system. This stands in direct contrast to the possible setup of new centralized EDITS systems that would provide a central MTI end-user service for all involved regions, which is clearly not the approach that has been chosen (compare Figure 4 and Figure 5). The end-user services will be demonstrated in different pilots among the EDITS partners within specified corridors where cross-border journey planning will be made available. These include show-cases like for instance door-to-door routing for individual and public transport journey planning from Vienna in Austria to Brno in the Czech Republic which is currently not available since no cross-border time table data is exchanged among the local public transport operators KORDIS and VOR. The important conceptual aspect is that within EDITS the existing information services (like in the KORDIS-VOR case e.g. the existing journey planning platforms IDS JMK in Czech Republic and VAO in Austria) are enhanced by the exchanged cross-border information through the EDITS interfaces. This means that the existing partner s system will provide the full journey planning and traveller information aspects of the existing services and will in addition be extended by the cross-border components developed within EDITS.

6 G. Menzel, M. Böhm / Transport Research Arena 2014, Paris 6 Fig. 4: Not the goal: a centralized system and central MTI service 3. Conclusion Fig. 4: The goal: a decentralized system enabling regionally operated cross-border MTI services EDITS European Digital Traffic Infrastructure Network for Intelligent Transport Systems is a European Union project under the umbrella of the Central Europe Programme co-financed by the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund). Bringing together partners from different governmental levels from five different countries within the Central Europe region, EDITS develops common transnational solutions for the exchange of transport related information and the improvement of interoperable and multimodal traveller information services. The fundamental basis to facilitate these services are an interoperable and multimodal EDITS-GIP (Graph- Integration-Platform) and EDITS-GIP-interface which is a tool to enable the exchange and provision of travel relevant data and information. This is achieved through the set up or improvement of existing traveller information services and of traffic management solutions. The services developed in this way will provide EDITS users with support before and during their journey within and beyond the single regions. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the EDITS approach of exchanging data and information several end-user services will be deployed in 2013 and 2014 resulting in demonstrations in the second half of 2014.

7 G. Menzel, M. Böhm / Transport Research Arena 2014, Paris References EDITS Project (2012a). EDITS Project Website, Vienna, available on EDITS Project (2012b). Output Report on State-of-the-Art analysis, Hungarian Transport Administration - Deliverable of the CENTRAL EUROPE EDITS Project Consortium, (pp 7-8), Vienna, available on EDITS Project (2013). Output Report on EDITS Service Definition, Deliverable of the CENTRAL EUROPE EDITS Project Consortium, Vienna, available on European Commission (2011). White Paper: Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system. COM (2011) 144 (2011), Brussels FSV (2012). RVS Intermodal Transport Reference System for Austria. Standard description GIP (Graphs Integration Platform), Vienna, available on Mandl-Mair, Irmgard (2012). GIP. at: The Basis for a Modern Administration of Austria's Transport Routes. In Proceedings of the 19th ITS World Congress, ERTICO 2012