Joe [apologies if this appears twice - last night's posting did not appear to get through]
I think there is a misunderstanding in your question. TransXChange is an XML schema based on Transmodel architecture and is increasingly used within the UK to exchange route and timetable data, taking over from the legacy ATCO.CIF format which is more limited in its capabilities. TransXChange is used in a legal framework for "registering" bus services - one of the main bus operators in the country is already well advanced with implementing this- whilst others are not yet registering services, but the schema is being used extensively for interchanging information between operators, information system providers and real-time information system operators. Transmodel is an abstract database model - and it does NOT have a tangible schema associated with it. What it does, crucially, is to define the terms which are used and the relationships between elements in a very comprehensive and detailed way. Whilst implementations in Europe comprise legacy systems, the move towards Transmodel based protocols is inescapable in many areas - and many countries are now supporting the development of a tangible European exchange format (title coined for this is NeTEx for Network and Ticketing Exchange) ... which will build on the UK experience of TransXChange, and the European work on SIRI (for real time information exchange) and IFOPT for location referencing - both of which have their foundations in Transmodel. Rome was not built in a day - so it is not surprising that national protocols such as those developed by the German VDV, and the UK's ATCO.CIF, are still in widespread use ... it will take many years before the transition to more modern techniques can be implemented. The drivers for such work, though, are clear - they come from the demand for more detailed information systems including real time, pedestrian micro-navigation and the like. Transmodel is already aligned with GDF v4 standards - and a recent review confirmed that this alignment will remain valid for GDF v5 . The European standards groups working on the public transport information standards are keen to ensure that the fundamentals of their work align with those in both the GDF and GIS worlds - and hopefully that view is also reciprocated by the geographical community whose protocols and architectures need to reflect the realities of transit systems, just as much as they have to reflect the realities of all other things that are represented through mapping geo-data. Best wishes RogerS Roger -----Original Message----- From: talk-transit-boun...@openstreetmap.org [mailto:talk-transit-boun...@openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Joe Hughes Sent: 07 March 2009 22:31 To: Peter Miller Cc: talk-transit@openstreetmap.org; talk-gb-westmidla...@openstreetmap.org; Brian Prangle; Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists) Subject: Re: [Talk-transit] [Spam] Re: [Talk-gb-westmidlands] NaPTAN dataimport On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 4:13 AM, Peter Miller <peter.mil...@itoworld.com> wrote: > Transmodel was created as a general model for public transport that > worked for all modes for all purposes and allowed companies and > authorities to mix and match products from different countries. The > lead country for Transmodel was France and now all tenders in Europe > for this sort of stuff will use Transmodel terminology and all CEN > standards will also use it. Transmodel is also used as a standard > informally in many other countries when specifying systems because it > is there and it works. Can you point us to a good list of operators that use Transmodel? It would certainly help all of us if there were a widely-used representation, but much to my chagrin I have yet to see a single publicly-available data set offered in TransXChange format. From what I've seen in my time at Google, many European operators are still representing their data in a mishmash of forms that depends largely on which country they're in and who provides their operational software. Of course, that doesn't make all the thought and debate that's gone into Transmodel any less valuable when considering how to represent things in OSM. It's great that folks like you and Roger are lending your experience to this discussion. Cheers, Joe _______________________________________________ Talk-transit mailing list Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit _______________________________________________ Talk-transit mailing list Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit