In today's society there is an increasing demand to use information regarding transportation networks. In order to achieve effective solutions in this area it must be possible to transfer information between systems or applications. In Sweden this is possible through the Swedish standard for road and railroad information. This standard describes a transportation network, its features and the handling of change transactions between systems and it is based on the standards from CEN TC 287 and ISO TC 211 Geographic Information. A standardized structure with a common interface means that different systems can exchange information which is of great importance when for example managing the National Road Database. This nation coveringdatabase shares data with other municipality managed road databases thru change transactions according to the standard. The presence of a standard is also of great advantage to anyone producing applications based on information connected to a transportation network, regardless if it is on boardinformation system in a vehicle, a route optimization application, an application for street maintenance management, or an aid system for disabled people. On one hand, the standard constitutes a reliable, long-term sourceof information that continuously processes and updates basic road data. Further, it will be possible to use the applications in combination with other databases once a common standard applies a digital infrastructure that describes the Swedish road network at a fundamental level.
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