[Talk-gb-westmidlands] [Talk-transit] [Spam] Re: NaPTAN dataimport

[Roger Slevin]

Joe
[apologies if this appears twice - last night's posting did not appear to
get through]

I think there is a misunderstanding in your question.

TransXChange is an XML schema based on Transmodel architecture and is
increasingly used within the UK to exchange route and timetable data, taking
over from the legacy ATCO.CIF format which is more limited in its
capabilities.  TransXChange is used in a legal framework for "registering"
bus services - one of the main bus operators in the country is already well
advanced with implementing this- whilst others are not yet registering
services, but the schema is being used extensively for interchanging
information between operators, information system providers and real-time
information system operators.

Transmodel is an abstract database model - and it does NOT have a tangible
schema associated with it.  What it does, crucially, is to define the terms
which are used and the relationships between elements in a very
comprehensive and detailed way.  Whilst implementations in Europe comprise
legacy systems, the move towards Transmodel based protocols is inescapable
in many areas - and many countries are now supporting the development of a
tangible European exchange format (title coined for this is NeTEx for
Network and Ticketing Exchange) ... which will build on the UK experience of
TransXChange, and the European work on SIRI (for real time information
exchange) and IFOPT for location referencing - both of which have their
foundations in Transmodel.

Rome was not built in a day - so it is not surprising that national
protocols such as those developed by the German VDV, and the UK's ATCO.CIF,
are still in widespread use ... it will take many years before the
transition to more modern techniques can be implemented.  The drivers for
such work, though, are clear - they come from the demand for more detailed
information systems including real time, pedestrian micro-navigation and the
like.

Transmodel is already aligned with GDF v4 standards - and a recent review
confirmed that this alignment will remain valid for GDF v5 .  The European
standards groups working on the public transport information standards are
keen to ensure that the fundamentals of their work align with those in both
the GDF and GIS worlds - and hopefully that view is also reciprocated by the
geographical community whose protocols and architectures need to reflect the
realities of transit systems, just as much as they have to reflect the
realities of all other things that are represented through mapping geo-data.

Best wishes

RogerS

Roger

-----Original Message-----
From: talk-transit-bounces at openstreetmap.org
[mailto:talk-transit-bounces at openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Joe Hughes
Sent: 07 March 2009 22:31
To: Peter Miller
Cc: talk-transit at openstreetmap.org; Talk-gb-westmidlands at openstreetmap.org;
Brian Prangle; Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists)
Subject: Re: [Talk-transit] [Spam] Re: [Talk-gb-westmidlands] NaPTAN
dataimport

On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 4:13 AM, Peter Miller <peter.miller at itoworld.com>
wrote:
> Transmodel was created as a general model for public transport that
> worked for all modes for all purposes and allowed companies and
> authorities to mix and match products from different countries. The
> lead country for Transmodel was France and now all tenders in Europe
> for this sort of stuff will use Transmodel terminology and all CEN
> standards will also use it. Transmodel is also used as a standard
> informally in many other countries when specifying systems because it
> is there and it works.

Can you point us to a good list of operators that use Transmodel?

It would certainly help all of us if there were a widely-used
representation, but much to my chagrin I have yet to see a single
publicly-available data set offered in TransXChange format.  From what
I've seen in my time at Google, many European operators are still
representing their data in a mishmash of forms that depends largely on
which country they're in and who provides their operational software.

Of course, that doesn't make all the thought and debate that's gone
into Transmodel any less valuable when considering how to represent
things in OSM.  It's great that folks like you and Roger are lending
your experience to this discussion.

Cheers,
Joe

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