FORCE 3 - Radio Data System/Traffic Message Channel for European Interoperability
Overview
Background & policy context:
Updated information on traffic flows, accidents, weather conditions and other relevant events is an essential tool to reach safe and sustainable road transport. The concept of Traffic Message Channel (TMC) allows traffic messages to be standardised, encoded and transmitted in a digital form, through RDS, to the vehicle receivers in parallel with the current broadcast programme.
There is a network of RDS/TMC services across Europe, with subtle differences in content and quality. The service providers and the other actors involved in the business chain of RDS/TMC also vary across Europe, with both complementary and overlapping services. Harmonised and interconnected services would allow to use the same receiver in any European country, and achieve standardised quality levels of the service.
Objectives:
The main objective of the FORCE 3 project, together with the FORCE 1 and FORCE 2 projects of the Telematics Applications Programme and the ECORTIS-TEN-T project, was to enable the implementation of RDS/TMC services with European wide functionality.
To ensure that those services are continuous, interoperable with any receiver and achieve agreed quality levels, specific objectives of the FORCE-ECORTIS projects were to:
- achieve a common functionality according to agreed definitions,
- develop common guidelines for implementing and operating services,
- encourage common understanding of the European elements and basic services,
- enforce the co-ordination between service providers and all RDS/TMC actors,
- increase the exchange of traffic information between services,
- consolidate standards and specifications,
- fix the framework for European activities.
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