ROADIDEA INCO – A Comparison of North-American and European Data Availabilities and Applications

Abstract

The main target of ROADIDEA, a collaborative research project in the 7th Framework Pro-gramme of the European Union, was to answer the question, whether the European Transpor-tation System is still able to produce radical innovations. And if not, what are the barriers to be overcome. Amongst other side aspects of such a general investigation of innovation potential, the data aspect was one of the most important investigations carried out in parallel. In a dedicated data work package corresponding data availability and related aspects were analysed. However, the heterogeneous availability of necessary data (traffic and weather) in Europe was identified as one of the main barriers for the implementation of desired services on a conti-nental scale. This specific barrier made it almost impossible to implement similar services in different European countries and regions. When reporting this to the European Commission, the question came up, whether a free data policy – as assumed being applied in the U.S. – could solve this issue. As a minor extension to the ROADIDEA project, ROADIDEA INCO (International Cooperation Aspects) was charged with the investigation of comparable ITS services in the U.S. and Canada and underlying data. But also the other way around approach – to investigate available data and assess corresponding application and services - promised to reveal interesting relations between available data and derived applications and services. This paper describes the results of the data source and application investigation of the ROADIDEA INCO project.