Toward GIS-Compliant Data Structures for Traffic and Transportation Models

In many traffic and transportation models, data structures used for input and output do not adhere to common data formats. Consequently, many different architectures are used concurrently with little or no relation to the geographic information systems that carry and provide these data. As a result, the exchange of data between traffic models is often cumbersome. To improve the usability of geo-information, this paper studies the establishment of a standard for the transport domain that aligns to an existing international standard for geo-information, i.e. CityGML (Geographical Markup Language for city and landscape models). The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) established this standard as a generic standard for 3D modelling of topographic features. In this paper we propose a standard for traffic and transport modelling in the form of a CityGML Application Domain Extension (ADE). First, we analyse the data requirements for traffic and transportation models and present a description of objects that are necessary to build the traffic infrastructure for traffic models. By comparing these data with the CityGML data model concepts, we show a strong semantic match between concepts required in the transport domain and CityGML. Consequently, defining a standard for input data in the transport domain that aligns to CityGML will make it possible to reuse geo-information that was acquired for other purposes. This paper also shows the possibilities to extend CityGML to support properties that are specific to the transport domain. Further research will focus on further detailing the CityGML ADE for Transport and testing it in traffic and transportation models