Overview
Geographic Data Files (GDF) is the standard used for road data modeling, especially in vehicle navigation systems. A huge amount of road data has been described according to this standard, first of all by the two digital road map providers, NavTech and TeleAtlas.
The Swiss road maintenance services use the STRADA database to manage road maintenance. Thus, they describe the properties of federal or cantonal roads, their actual state and the interventions to come on certain road section.
One should analyze the potential combination of the two, often complementary, data sources, and that form the technical, legal and organizational point of view. Information concerning building sites on highways, treated by maintenance services, could interest the road user; the data on communal roads contained in GDF databases could be useful for the toad maintenance services and so on.
The aim of the project is to analyse the interoperability between GDF-based services and the road database used for road maintenance.
The project should:
- analyse the potential of GDF and future GDF-based services
- examine GDF's adequacy to road maintenance requirements
- investigate the general potential of GDF and a relational database (RDB) data coupling
- analyse semantic conflicts between GDF and RDB data, in particular concerning spatial referencing and road network modeling
- analyse a combined management of RDB and GDF data, in particular regarding structural aspects and aspects related to management functions
- analyse legal and organisational aspects related to the use of navigation systems road data in road maintenance
- implement a practical case for the road network of the VD canton.
Based on the international standardisation of ISO TC 204 on geographic data for car navigation (GDF) and based on the needs of road managers, a concept of integration of this data will be developed. To validate this concept, a feasibility test will be performed using the GDF data VD Township.