Desk
Interoperability
NTCIP, TMDD, and the work of getting agency systems to exchange data.
04entries
On this desk
Explainers
Explainer
Mobility data interoperability, and why an open standard is not enough
The Mobility Data Interoperability Principles define an open standard with five tests. A new registry grades 55 specifications against them. We counted the verdicts: free and documented is common, open governance is not, and passing all five does not make a standard adopted.
Explainer
Agency data in OpenStreetMap: the map has your stops, not your identifiers
OpenStreetMap mappers have already placed most of the objects an agency wants to contribute, and placed them well. What the map lacks is the agency's own IDs, which is the one thing only the agency can supply.
Explainer
What intelligent transportation systems actually are
Intelligent transportation systems is a broad label that hides a precise idea. What ITS covers, what it looks like on the street, and why 253 of the 304 standards in the national architecture are about nothing but getting data from one system to another.
Explainer
How buses talk to traffic lights: transit signal priority
Transit signal priority lets a late bus ask a traffic signal for a few more seconds of green. Here is the request-to-grant message chain, how it differs from emergency preemption, and how NTCIP 1211 lets mixed-vendor buses and controllers interoperate.