DATEX II is the electronic language used in Europe for the exchange of traffic information and traffic data. The development of DATEX II was initiated in the early 90s because of the need to exchange information between traffic centers of motorway operators. Soon there was the need to open this information to service providers. DATEX I was somewhat too limited for this and used outdated technical concepts. Which is why DATEX II was developed in the early years of this millennium. By means of DATEX II, traffic information and traffic management information is distributed in a way that is not dependent on language and presentation format. This means that there is no room for misunderstandings and / or translation errors by the recipient, but the recipient can choose to include spoken text, an image on a map, or to integrate it in a navigation calculation. The increasing scale on which ITS services are being dimensioned, as well as the new digitization requirements arising from self-driving cars, requires increased use of standards and thus also challenges the DATEX II community accordingly.
- The stakeholder cooperation maintaining DATEX II is hosted by CEDR (Conference of European Directors of Roads) per the 1st of January 2016. CEDR supports DATEX II because of its strategical significance for national road authorities and road operators. The DATEX II organisation is open to all stakeholders in the traffic and travel domain that want to participate in the development, maintenance and user support of DATEX II.
- Some activities of the DATEX II organization are funded by EU CEF Programme Support Action (PSA) Agreement number MOVE/C3/SUB/2015-547/CEF/PSA/SI2.733309 RWS.
- The governance of the DATEX II organization is controlled by the “Rules of Procedure of the DATEX II organization”, which can be found on the bottom of this page. These rules apply to all partners in the DATEX II organization.
- DATEX II is a multi-part standard, maintained by CEN Technical Committee 278, Road Transport and Traffic Telematics, see www.itsstandards.eu.
- The first six parts of the CEN DATEX II series CEN/TS 16157 have already been approved as Technical Specifications in 2011-2015. The first three parts and the seventh part of the CEN DATEX II series are under approval as European Standards.
History
Delivering European Transport Policy in line with the ITS Action Plan of the European Commission requires co-ordination of traffic management and development of seamless pan European services. With the aim to support sustainable mobility in Europe, the European Commission has been supporting the development of information exchange mainly between the actors of the road traffic management domain for several years. In the road sector, the DATEX II standard was developed for information exchange between traffic management centres, traffic information centres and service providers and constitutes the reference for applications that have been developed in the last 10 years. The second generation DATEX II specification now also pushes the door wide open for all actors in the traffic and travel information sector.
Much investment has been made in Europe, both in traffic control and information centres over the last decade and also in a quantum shift in the monitoring of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). This is in line with delivering the objectives of the EasyWay programme for safer roads, reduced congestion and a better environment. Collecting information is only part of the story – to make the most of the investment data, it needs to be exchanged both with other centres and, in a more recent development, with those developing pan-European services provided directly to road users. DATEX II was originally designed and developed as a traffic and travel data exchange mechanism by a European task force set up to standardise the interface between traffic control and information centres. With the new generation DATEX II it has become the reference for all applications requiring access to dynamic traffic and travel related information in Europe. The aim of the DATEX II organisation is that in 2020 DATEX II is THE information model for road traffic and travel information in Europe.