EuroRoadS

Meeting Europe's road data needs

One of the major obstacles to the large-scale deployment of ITS today is the lack of a high-quality, pan-European road data infrastructure. Many ITS applications are completely dependent on the accessibility of low-cost, up-to-date, and quality-assured road data. With new ITS applications being developed at high speeds and existing applications becoming more widely deployed, the demand for information is on the rise.

Currently however, there is no uniform way of handling road data on a pan-European level. Different countries have reached different stages of development. While some have developed a very comprehensive national road data infrastructure that covers all roads and all relevant road information, other countries are lagging significantly behind.

The EuroRoadS project aims to correct this imbalance by building a platform for a pan-European road data solution. It will design a harmonised specification framework for exchanging European road data and develop mechanisms to maintain and make such data broadly available. The specification will be based on carefully analysed user requirements and a prototype will be developed to test and validate the end product. The overall goal is improve the quality and reduce the cost of data, and make it easier to integrate road data from different sources.

Objectives

• Identify the business environment and the most common user groups of European road information and analyse their needs. The anaylsis will focus on requirements for road data structure, road data content, content update and frequency, data access and data exchange.
• Develop a prototype road data specification framework and carry out tests to show that the framework can be used as a platform for a European road data solution.
• Create processes for evaluation and quality control of the information chain.
• Make proposals for structures and mechanisms that will support the implementation of a harmonised European road data solution.
• Formulate an exploitation plan to support a wide use of the European road data infrastructure and to facilitate the development of services based on it.

Duration and Funding

March 2004 - August 2006, funding through the EC Directorate General Information Society (eContent Programme)

Consortium

Coordinator - Lantmäteriet Sweden

Bavarian Ministry of Interior (Germany), Bundesamt für Eich und Vermessungswesen (Austria), ERTICO, EuroGeographics (France), Government of Bavaria represented by the Board of Building and Public Works, Institut für Anwendungen der Geodäsie im Bauwesen (Germany), Institut Géographique National (France), Ordnance Survey (United Kingdom), Planung Transport und Verkehr AG (Germany), Vägverket (Sweden)

Visit the EuroRoadS website