Data standards for the New Zealand transport network (NZ Transport Agency Research Report 627)

As transport network operations become more and more time critical the requirement for knowledge of the performance and state of the network becomes more significant for decision support. Sensor technology is advancing quickly, particularly with respect to the ‘Internet of Things’, and there are significant amounts of data and information generated by a number of internal and external sources that relate to transport network and require processing. An inherent embedded component of the data sources is information about the transport networks themselves. Typically, this spatial attribute is developed to meet the specific needs of an application leading to diverse representations of the same transport network. There is a lack of transport specific data analysis platforms that are resilient to change, are lightweight and cost efficient to maintain. Analytical tools are often tied to specific proprietary systems that compromise adaptability and create latency in terms of keeping up with the rapidly changing developments, and indeed in representing transient changes in transport networks. This report proposes a method that will support normalising diverse network representations of selected data sources, and support presentation of the information within the context of a standardised reference transport network model.