Travel planners combined with global positioning system (GPS)-based navigation and information systems are gaining popularity and enhance the road user's individual guidance and comfort. One of the side effects being, that it may partly offset a central and consistent traffic management if the two information flows are conflicting. This paper describes an architecture, which enables an efficient and cost-effective delivery of a uniform, provider independent, state-of-the-art, travel time prediction (TTP) servicequality to the road user. This service can be made available to all road-users, in-car and ex-car, through any service provider, at any time. The architecture, being open, modular and scalable, is suited for a public-private partnership and allows continuous innovation by replacing modules. Modules are defined and interfaced in such a way that new requirements can met by all service providers without impairing their business case. The public-private part of the architecture can be considered as a client-server network, where the client software is suitable for integration in any existing travel planner. This paper focuses on the situation in The Netherlands, but analysis and solution may also be applicable in other countries.
Abstract