Background
Need for European Road Data
The handling of road data on a pan-European level is today characterised by a high level of fragmentation. The member countries have reached different stages of development when it comes to the establishment of homogenous national road data infrastructure that cover all roads and all kinds of road information.
Considerable resources are spentin Europe to
develop more intelligent traffic systems in order to increase road
traffic safety, improve the environment and make it easier for
travellers. An obstacle to this development is the lack of a
pan-European road data infrastructure of high quality. The EuroRoadS
project is intended to lay the ground for the creation of such an
infrastructure.
User requirements and accessibility
The user requirements of up-to-date and quality-assured road data covering the whole of Europe will increase in rate with the marketing and development of new IT-/GPS-/tele-communication based tools. The introduction and penetration of many of many new products and applications are completely dependant on the accessibility of economically viable, up-to-date, and quality-assured road data.
The need to guarantee to the end-user of the quality of road information being served is emphasised by the instantaneous nature of a network-based service. This can be achieved only if direct access to a maintained database is provided. When road information services are to be introduced to a much broader public than today, open access to primary road databases, continuously updated by governmental organisations, becomes a necessity.