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I am at a crossroads where I want to store more than a scenarios worth of project data from a Synchro study, but do not want to keep this data in a series of text files. The data output by Synchro is standardized to a tab delimeted text file. The raw text files are useless when organizing a GIS analysis or visualizing (map) the study area. They require much more then some simple manipulation.

I want to know if there exists a spatial data model for storing traffic volumes, layout, lanes, timing and phasing information that is included in the UTDF specification used by many traffic analysis software.

By storing data in a spatial database, I would be able to hold many time periods worth of data, visualize subsets of said data, and perform temporal analysis. However, most beneficial would be the ability to export a selection of data at any given intersection(s) into a UTDF that can be consumed by Synchro or any other traffic analysis software.

Typically:

Traffic Analysis Software (e.g. Synchro) <--> UTDF

What I want to do:

Spatial Database <--UTDF--> Synchro

Essentially, the UTDF becomes the standard format in which data is transferred between the spatial database and traffic analysis software.

Does the Spatial Database <--UTDF part already exist?

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  • I'm not sure what you mean by UDTF, but Esri's transit data model is quite comprehensive.
    – Cindy Jayakumar
    Nov 10, 2012 at 18:16
  • I am referencing this: transxml.org/Resources/ITS+Resources/70.aspx
    – Michael Markieta
    Nov 12, 2012 at 15:28
  • I've voted to close this question as it seems to be too localized and hard to answer constructively. One major issue is the fact that transport simulation software used around the world have very little standardized integration with GIS. Building a standard and creating many exporters as outlined by Jurgen is not ideal but it works because it fixes a problem for an entire nation. I would/could not see this as a useful approach on a local level scenerio as this would be much too time consuming.
    – Michael Markieta
    Feb 23, 2013 at 8:33

2 Answers 2

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Don't know if this helps you, because I think UTDF is not very "europe related".

What I know, there are a lot of different combinations of spatial database model <-> Exchange Format <-> Traffic analysis software. It depends mostly on the exchange format which is supported by your traffic analysis software, but its very hard to get out of the box solutions for any of them.

One well defined exchange format is GDF, which is also known and used by OpenStreetMap (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/GDF) which can be an advantage perhaps if you need additional data. There also exists an GDF-writer for the FME software, so its quite easy to implement an GDF exporter for nearly any database model with FME.

Also the OpenStreetMap XML Format itself can be used for data exchange, there are also FME writers for it.

The European Union defines an road network data model in its INSPIRE directive, which we europeans must be able to deliver, I am not quite sure if this is supported by many software vendors in future.

In Austria we use VISUM for traffic analysis and its INTREST Format is widely accepted as interchange format. We also developed a common spatial database model called "Graph Integration Platform (GIP)" for storing any objects in a transportation network. Based on the GIP, we developed exporters to different formats like INTREST and GDF. An INSPIRE exporter is in drafting state, and UTDF just would be another exporter which has to be drafted and implemented. You can get basic information about our spatial database model on http://www.gip.gv.at/home-en.html

But as far as I know there is no out-of-the-box solution for this available.

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  • Ups,think I didn't fully understand your requirements at the first read... so you want to store different analysis variants. GIP only stores the actual and historic situations of the road network (lanes, traffic volume and so on). Perhaps you should store your export files in a simple file version software (MS Sharepoint or something like that)
    – Jürgen Zornig
    Feb 9, 2013 at 10:36
  • Hi jurgen, you've helped much more than I could have expected! Thank you for your time. Would you be kind enough to post the GIS spatial database model that you use at GIP?
    – Michael Markieta
    Feb 23, 2013 at 8:28
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Geographic Data Format used by Navteq and Teleatlas. xuml I believe with OOP

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