Activities

The TMC Forum work programme is driven by its members' needs. The TMC Forum has a flexible and dynamic structure - new working groups are formed as and when needed. The current active structure is as follows:

Management/Business Groups:
Management Group
Location Referencing Group

Task Forces/Working Groups:
New Features Task Force
Icon Task Force

Urban Task Force

Location Referencing Task Force

Service Receiver Harmonisation Task Force

Release Teams:
Location Table Release Team

Jointly Run with TPEG Forum:

Road Traffic Information Group

The Management Group decides on and manages the Forum's affairs at regular meetings. It also establishes work groups for co-ordinating or treating specific topics; decides on Membership fees; liaises with external bodies such as the European Commission, European Conference of Ministers of Transport, World-DAB Forum, RDS Forum. The Management Group prepares, initiates and co-ordinates the execution of R&D activities and improvement of the quality of standards and implementation.

The Management Group is elected by, and from among, the members of the Forum on a regular basis.

Chairman: Danny Woolard (ITIS)

The Location Referencing Business Group ensures efficient management of the updating and quality control of TMC location tables, and is the single focus for all matters relating to location referencing and TMC location tables.

Among the responsibilities of the Location Referencing Group are to:

• Review arrangements for the maintenance and updating of TMC location databases, recommend best practice and monitor actions taken by database owners.
• Define and operate procedures for certification and scheduled release of location tables
• Review the technical guidelines for creating location codes and recommend improvements. 
• Identify actions to better integrate location databases into digital map databases. 
• Monitor and report on the potential for improving the TMC location referencing system. 

All TMC Forum members are welcome to join the Location Referencing Group. The Location Referencing Group is particularly of interest to location coding specialists, location database owners, digital map database owners, receiver manufacturers and navigation system manufacturers.

Chairman: Kees Wevers (Navteq)

Whereas the Location Referencing Group has the overall 'bigger picture' of location referencing, the role of the Location Referencing Task Force is to concentrate on more detailed work on new items regarding location referencing standards / TMC Forum specifications and handbooks. It consists of studying and proposing modifications, corrections or new features to these documents, either to improve their content or to bring new location solutions when they are required by new TMC needs or features.

Chairman: Kees Wevers (Navteq)

The Location Table Release Team (LTRT) exists to improve the quality of location tables used for European TMC Services.  The LTRT has developed a certification procedure which grants a stamp of quality to those location tables which pass a set of tests.

Chairman: Heinz-Werner Pfeiffer (Bosch Blaupunkt)

In order to have a location table certified, it is necessary to give it a pre-test using the location table test tool developed on the specifications of the LTRT. 

Any organisation may request the certification of a TMC Location Table. The procedure is defined in the documents downloadable below.

• TMC Forum members have a choice to buy a sub-licence for the test tool, or to pay a fee to have each table submission tested. 
• TMC Forum members that are non-commercial organisations creating tables and making them available free of charge may be entitled to a free sub-licence for the test tool. 
• For non-members a fee will be charged.

Contact the TMC Forum Coordinator for more information.

• For the location table certification procedure please click here. TMCF-LTCP-2004-v08.pdf (169 KB)
• For the certification request form please click here. LTRT-CR- FORM 2005.doc (123 KB)

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The New Features Task Force exists to generate, review and progress new TMC features to readiness for wide-scale implementation.

The New Features Task Force shall ensure a consistent approach to the development of TMC features - to be adopted and developed by the TMC Forum and to be prepared for standardisation.

Among the responsibilities of the New Features Task Force are to:

• Co-ordinate the evaluation of proposed new features, taking particular account of TMC Forum members' business priorities and requirements
• Co-ordinate the development of new features, taking particular account of practical system constraints
• Advise TMC Forum members and industry on the implementation of the new features
• Ensure new features are included in revised standards, through the creation of TMC Forum Specifications, eventually to be included into the next update of the official standards.

All TMC Forum members are welcome to join the New Features Task Force.

Chairman: Nicolas Kireeff (T-Mobile Traffic)

The majority of TMC messages received today are presented to the driver as icons on the displays of GUI (Graphical User Interface) equipped TMC-enabled terminals - such as map-display or turn-by-turn navigation systems. The objective of the Icon Task Force is to improve the perceived quality of TMC services, through an agreed use of traffic icons in these circumstances.

The Icon Task Force is working to create an agreed and unified icon set for the graphical interface to the user associated with defined TMC messages and to define an agreed set of graphics for each icon (for monochrome, colour screens etc.). These icons should be easy to recognise and suitable for any kind of display and zoom factor. 

The results will be provided as an optional best-practice guide.  The guide will define a basic graphic form and usage which manufacturers are welcomed to use to inform their own icon designs and usage.

Chairman: Niki Lijnen (Pioneer)

The majority of TMC services today concentrate on inter-urban routes and key urban corridors. The Urban Task Force is investigating the requirements for the best support of traffic information in urban areas.  This work addresses both minor improvements which could improve urban TMC in the short to medium term (remaining fully compatible with the defined standards), and also a longer-term view of what would be needed to support the ideal urban traffic information service.

Chairman: Ralf Duckeck (Blaupunkt)

As TMC services have developed, both technically and geographically, greater emphasis on terminal devices for navigation and in particular dynamic route guidance has brought a requirement for greater consistency between the intentions of the service provider and the interpretation of the terminal device. The objective of the SRH task force is to improve the quality of the finally delivered service to the end user, i.e. the driver, through consistent interaction between services and terminals.

To achieve the objectives the task force will need to draw on the broad experience from all sectors represented in the TMC Forum, in particular Service Providers and Receiver Manufacturers.

Chairman: Danny Woolard (ITIS)

The Road Traffic Information Group has been created to ensure synergy from the development and operation of TMC and TPEG technologies for the best progress and development of future Road Traffic Information (RTI) by analysing the fundamental market-focused requirements and their links to TMC and TPEG technologies and services. The Road Traffic Information Group identifies future needs for traffic information, develops them into clearly defined requirements, and brings them to the attention of the appropriate organisation to develop technically.  This important new development held its first meeting in December 2004.

Co-Chairs: Danny Woolard (ITIS), Bev Marks (EBU)

Please note, the Road Traffic Information Group is not linked to the UK Real Time Information Group, which addresses real time information for public transport applications.

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