TMC Forum replaced by TISA

A new international forum is about to assume peak responsibility for ongoing evolution of international standards for real-time traffic and traveller information services.

TISA, the Traveller Information Services Association, has resulted from the merger of two current standards groups, the TMC and TPEG forums. Both forums were working on complimentary standards for encoding and broadcasting real-time traffic-related content.

TMC is well known as the almost universally adopted standard for connecting navigation systems to real-time traffic information, and is deployed across a range of bearers including FM radio, digital radio, and GPRS. TMC will continue to evolve and is expected to dominate consumer traffic information services for at least another decade. However TPEG will build on TMC to provide an evolution path to even richer services taking full advantage of digital radio and other higher-bandwidth bearers as these are adopted.

In view of the current focus on location referencing in Australia, it is relevant to note that both traffic information standards support the same TMC Location Table referencing system, and will be fully interoperable in this regard. TPEG supplements the location-table referencing approach by providing the optional support for a map and location table -independent location referencing system known as AGORA-C. However AGORA-C is data and computer intensive, and will be most commonly used by service providers to reference unforseen event locations not modelled by the table-driven approach.

As with the TMC Forum, TISA will be operating under the auspices of ERTICO (the European equivalent of ITS-Australia). Intelematics will continue in its efforts to provide an Australian voice in traffic and traveller information standards forums. TISA's inaugural General Assembly is in Berlin on November 21st.

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