The European Commission identified ITS, in the framework of the European ITS Action Plan, as a very important contribution to a cleaner, more efficient and safer transport system. In order to make interoperability and continuity of ITS implementations compatible, the European Commission developed specifications for priority ITS actions. These specifications have a close link to DATEX II as the main standard for the exchange of transport-related data.
This activity aims at supporting the operational implementation of the delegated regulations in the Member States. Since the scope of DATEX II is very wide, this activity has been divided into sub-tasks in order to support all types of implementations.
• Task 1.1 – User guides: To enhance the widely spread utilisation of DATEX II, it should be promoted by increased user acceptance. To achieve this, the provision of extended user support is expected. DATEX II offers support in the form of user guides and support tools.
• Task 1.2 – Support: In a second step, the already available national achievements regarding the implementation of DATEX II for the purpose of traffic data exchange are analysed.
• Task 1.3 – DATEX II Academy: The DATEX II Academy is the place where users can find all the needed information about DATEX II before they start with their implementations. In order to support the DATEX II implementing organisations, online instructions and training materials are made available and improved: https://docs.datex2.eu/
• Task 1.4 – DATEX II RAV Centre (Reference Advice and Validation): Nowadays becoming part of Activity 6 (for more information consult this Activity)
• Task 1.5 – Bi-annual DATEX II User Forum: DATEX II organises a bi-annual DATEX II user forum to inform the relevant stakeholders on managerial, tactical and technical level on the DATEX II developments. The venues for the User forum are spread among the participating Member States or strongly interested stakeholders in Europe, in order to reach out as much as possible to local implementers.
• Task 1.6 – Information provision to community: This task provides the DATEX II (user) community with relevant information regarding DATEX II. It does not focus on strategic liaison activities; it writes content (news items, content on website, etc.) and circulates and promotes user support material written / developed by other activities or tasks within A1. This task includes:
o The development of the new website and the management of the content that is published by the users,
o A discussion forum for the user community to ask questions and post their own implementations examples etc.
o The management of a DATEX II LinkedIn page in order to support the user community by providing regular news updates and promotion of available user support materials
o The management of a YouTube account to store, manage and provide easy access to official DATEX II video promotion material, visual updates and training material to user
o And the elaboration of other promotional and supporting material.
In 2018 the new website was developed with a more intuitive and useful format for users. This new update brought with it the update of the documentation portal. In addition, the YouTube and LinkedIn channels were launched to bring us closer to the community.
• NDW, The Netherlands
• Trafikverket, Sweden
• Egnatia Odos AE (Egnatia), Greece
• Cerema, France
• Autostrade Tech, Italy
• Highways England, United Kingdom
• Electronic Solutions S.R.L. (ELSOL), Romania
• Rijkswaterstaat, the Netherlands
• DGT, Spain
• HAC, Croatia
• Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie (bmvit), Austria
• ITS-Belgium, Belgium
• Department for Transport, United Kingdom
• IMT, Portugal
• Norwegian Public Roads Administration, Norway
Introductory Statements:
• Martin van Ekelenburg is the information architect at the National Datawarehouse for Traffic Information (NDW) in the Netherlands. His focus is on standardization of all the different data streams that NDW processes. He has been in the DATEX II Technical Management Group since 2017. He is in charge of the documentation part of the Datex II website.
• Since 2007, Marjolein works at the National Traffic Management Centre in the Netherlands, where she is the coordinator international road traffic management. She is also the chair of the DATEX II Steering Group and the coordinator of the DATEX II Programme Support Action.
• Gema Leiro is a consultant specialised in the management and planning of transport infrastructures as well as in the new technologies used to process and share the information derived from them. Gema has been working since 2015 for ICEACSA, a member of ANTEA Group and is involved in DATEX II representing the Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT) as technical assistance since 2017, when she started to be in charge of the DATEX II communication and information provision to the community.
• Rocío López is MSc Civil Engineering, specialised in transport, land and urban management. She has been working in TEKIA Ingenieros since 2017 and since then she participates in the DATEX II group representing the Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT) as she is a member of its technical assistance. In addition, she is part of the team that leads the communication and information provision to the community.
