TN-ITS is concerned with information exchange on changes in static road attributes. Road safety and efficiency require highly updated digital maps for ITS, but map providers struggle to keep these elements current. The solution is to retrieve the information on changes from the road authorities. As regulators of these changes, e.g., speed limits, they are the most immediate and reliable source for such information.

Vision:

• TN-ITS provides the updates on trusted, authoritative and regulatory road data to support ITS applications such as Safety, Automation and Efficient Mobility.
• TN-ITS is a a mandatory exchange format in the EU Mobility Data Space.

Mission:

• Facilitate and foster the exchange of ITS-related spatial road data between road authorities as trusted data providers, and data users as map providers and other parties.
• Bringing fresher digital map data to intelligent transport services, including authoritative and regulatory data and information.

Goals:

• To supply fresh, quality, accurate, and trusted digital maps to leading map and service providers. These maps represent the base for any of the advanced traffic applications that you experience e.g. in your car, or on your phone.
• Provide information exchange on modifications in static road attributes. The focus is on general on-road features based on regulations but may extend to other road and transport-related aspects.
• Serve as a joined innovation platform at the European level involving public administration to ensure road safety through accurate information shared by digital maps.

The concept of TN-ITS evolved from work in the EU funded project PReVENT/MAPS&ADAS (February 2004 – January 2007) on safety-related road attributes for ADAS applications, and especially from the EU-funded project ROSATTE (January 2008 – June 2010), which aimed at establishing an efficient and quality-ensured supply chain for information on safety-related road attributes, from public authorities to commercial map providers and other road data users, with a focus on changes in the concerned attributes rather than full data sets. The rationale behind TN-ITS is that for information on changes in static road attributes, the public authorities, who create the changes, are potentially the most efficient and immediate source. If processes and procedures are organised well, they can be a highly trusted source, while the information provided will reflect concise unambiguous spatial update reports that do not need substantial processing and interpretation.

The TN-ITS exchange framework originated from the ROSATTE project deliverable D3.1 “Specification of data exchange methods”. The core part of this document provides the specification of a mechanism for data exchange of road safety information, which consists of:

• a conceptual specification of the data content, using UML.
• a physical exchange format (structure and coding using GML schema) to specify a coding for the various types of data under the conceptual model
• a service specification, using UML class diagrams to facilitate the actual data flow between the various actors within ROSATTE.

Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE)