Towards Integrated Traffic Management for All of Austria: Realtime Traffic Information and Multimodal Journey Planning Beyond Administrative Borders
- Open Access
- 2026
- OriginalPaper
- Buchkapitel
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Abstract
1 Introduction
The European Commission passed the Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/1926 on 31 May 2017 with regard to the provision of EU-wide multimodal travel information services (the revision will be published soon). Even long before this event Austria took the approach to develop a platform called VAO („Traffic information Austria“): a nationwide intermodal traffic information platform that integrates approved traffic information of all modes of transport provided by the major traffic infrastructure and traffic service providers. The system includes public transport timetables, stations and other connecting points, a detailed intermodal graph called GIP [1], traffic messages and Level-of-Service data for all major motorways, all addresses in Austria, park + ride and other parking facilities as well as additional data such as points of interest, bike rental stations and short term parking zones. VAO’s various services rely on data covering all of Austria, making it a comprehensive toolset for traffic information and end user services. Intermodal routing services are available through a well-defined interface. [2] Currently, VAO is including shared mobility services to its routing and maps database.
EVIS.AT (Real time traffic information on Roads in Austria) on the other hand, aims at providing real time traffic information for roads and besides ASFINAG as Austria’s motorway operator, brought aboard the 9 Austrian federal states, ITS organizations, major cities as well as the Ministry of Internal Affairs (police) and the automotive and mobility club ÖAMTC. They joined forces to improve the real time traffic data landscape of Austria significantly and to harmonize data and processes nationally. The project has been an ITS emphasis in the past few years. It ended in 2022 and started a permanent operation of data provision and quality processes to ensure long term support. [3] Subsequent sections of this paper report on objectives, technical and organizational construction as well as provided data and services and use of that data.
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2 Objectives of the EVIS.AT Platform
EVIS.AT is a nationwide, harmonized and unified platform for all kinds of traffic information for motorized traffic, built by the experts who already developed and operate their existing solutions. The mission of the platform is to harmonize and unify traffic data for motorized traffic, with the goal of providing a better real time traffic data basis for VAO through creation of a data platform as well as processes for all major infrastructure and traffic information [5, 6]. EVIS.AT became the main content platform for dynamic aggregated road traffic information in Austria.
The main objectives of the EVIS.AT platform are:
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As public actors, create and collect own real-time traffic data as strong basis for administrative tasks and end user services but also when engaging with the large private mobility service providers (i.e. routing engines, navigation companies,…)
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Harmonize all data of all public actors (technically, structural, content-wise) to create a meaningful, national data set. Agree upon standards for implementation formats as well as delivery processes.
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Collect and provide all data at a single point of contact (EVIS.AT data platform) to make the data accessible; utilize this for data dissemination within the partners but also towards third parties, i.e. media, routing and navigation providers.
3 The EVIS.AT Platform
3.1 Development
The EVIS.AT platform (Echtzeit Verkehrsinformation Straße; real-time road traffic information) was established in an implementation project in three phases (planning, technical implementation, operation) and focused content-wise on the two key areas: incident management and real time traffic information (i.e. LOS on the roads).
Launching a project with broad participation of road and traffic authorities was based on the following considerations: Use local expertise. (collection of traffic information with respect to local road layouts and topographies but also knowledge of the specific workflows in provinces and federal states). Therefore, get everybody together. (EVIS is led by Austria’s motorway operator ASFINAG and supervised by BMK. Moreover, most of the administrative stakeholders for traffic in Austria are project partners). Develop common standards. (When using local expertise and even varying methods and means to collect traffic information it is a must to agree upon common standards and the quality of service along with data types and formats. This is meant to ensure that a national data aggregation and logical decentralized unit can produce harmonized traffic information and foster the exchange of data to efficiently use them for traffic information and network management. Basis for this are European standards like DATEX2.) [4].
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On the technical level, the main approach in developing the platform was to utilize existent well working solutions of the partners (be it systems, data formats, processes,…), select the fittest and deploy them nationally.
The project targeted the whole lifecycle of traffic information: from fundamentals like extending the stationary traffic sensor network throughout Austria, extending the traffic network graph GIP.GV.AT and tendering floating car data and mapping them on the graph. Concerning standards, the partners agreed upon data formats, definitions, message types and minimum standards for message creation. The definition of processes focused on clear responsibilities, local know-how and individual implementation. The partners implemented several tools for common usage (see next section) and in the area of governance, they set up a public-public partnership and contracts.
3.2 Technical Implementation
The EVIS.AT platform is structured as a distributed system. On the one hand, there are several local data aggregation and provision services. Following political and administrative conditions, partners from different areas in Austria are responsible for data generation and provision for their respective region. However, they all agreed upon common formats, standards and quality. To bring the data together in a harmonized way, these so called “central services” provide services to all users but are only implemented once. Therefore, each member can use all services implemented by itself or other parties. The following table gives an overview of the services (Table 1).
Table 1.
Central services of the EVIS.AT platform
Central service | Tasks |
|---|---|
Data hub | The Data Hub (data collection and distribution service) receives and distributes data between partners and 3rd parties like Verkehrsauskunft Österreich VAO and the free market |
Clearing service | The Clearing Service is responsible for the collection of incident data and for the conflict free distribution in terms of location and content |
Geo-Services | Geo-Services translate different versions of the above mentioned GIP format into the newest. They also translate the GIP system into other location referencing systems like WGS84. |
FCD Services | The Central FCD Service collects and tenders nationwide probe data, processes them from raw data to speeds and travel times and makes the data available to partners |
Traffic Message Acquisition Tool | The Traffic Message Acquisition Tool provides a tailored web front end for the input of traffic messages for authorities and supports the GIP as well as DATEX2 output and is integrated in a national identity provision and authorization framework and administration processes |
3.3 Legal and Organizational Implementation
Legally, the EVIS.AT platform is constructed as a public-public cooperation of public sector stakeholders based on respective agreements. This allows for a cooperation agreement, where each partner provides services, data and licenses to the consortium while avoiding to found a corporation or directly providing cash.
The main parts of the cooperation agreement include:
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Governance and steering of the operating platform;
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Central Services and responsibilities of the respective responsible party and operator within the distributed system EVIS.AT, for details see Sect. 3.2;
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Provision of real-time traffic data of the respective responsible authority;
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Consummation and rights of use of real-time traffic data of other parties;
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Technical sales and distribution of data services to third parties;
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Public relations and external communication of the platform EVIS.AT.
Goods and services that can not be provided from within the consortium are tendered on the market – where one or several of the partners tender the respective services for the whole platform. As of summer 2023, there have been two major tenders:
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Clearing services: the objective of the central service “Clearing” is to receive, process, quality check and provide all traffic messages of more than 60 regional message providers (local public authorities); most of these checks are automated but manual checks are performed as well.
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Floating car data: dynamic procurement system established by Salzburg Research and the federal states of Salzburg, Tirol and Vorarlberg where tenderers bid to demonstrate their qualification and eligibility based on legal and commercial terms as well as data specific KPIs [7] to enter the procurement pool and deliveries are requested based on available funds from the pool [8].
The technical but also legal and organizational implementation of the platform has been operating for over a year now and is working well.
4 EVIS.AT Data and Service Offering
Through the EVIS.AT platform, Austrian road authorities can provide their respective real-time traffic data to third parties at a one-stop-shop, harmonized and comprehensive for all of Austria: motorways but also the lower-level network and several cities.
ASFINAG is the distributor of all EVIS.AT real-time traffic information data, i.e. not only for motorways but also for the lower-level network. This is based upon respective agreements with all 9 federal states of Austria, several cities, the BMI (Ministry of the Interior/Police), the BMK (Ministry of climate and traffic) and ÖAMTC (Automotive Club) and several cities via the operating agreement.
The data streams included are listed in Table 2.
Table 2.
Data streams of EVIS.AT
Data stream | Data description | Data format |
|---|---|---|
Traffic messages of planned events | i.e. constructions, closures, events, winter equipment,… | DATEX2 |
Traffic messages of unplanned events | congestion, accidents, bad weather,… | DATEX2 |
Seasonal conditional access restrictions | closed off-ramps of highways (for through-traffic in Tirol and Salzburg) | DATEX2 |
Traffic State | level of service, current speeds | JSON |
Traffic State Prognosis | level of service, speed prognosis | JSON |
Yearly average speeds | Yearly average speeds | JSON |
All data is accessible via a secure https REST interface. Authentication and authorization are implemented via OpenID Connect.
To access the data, interested organizations need to sign a license agreement with the distributor ASFINAG. A license fee applies that reflects on the cost of providing the real-time data interfaces, clearing services and SLA. The data itself is free of charge.
All data is listed on Austria’s National Access Point mobilitaetsdaten.gv.at as requested by the ITS directive [9].
5 Application of EVIS.AT Traffic Data
EVIS.AT traffic data is being used in a variety of end-user applications but also for internal tools in traffic management.
Verkehrsauskunft Österreich (VAO) is providing white-label multimodal end-user applications as described in the introduction and implemented all EVIS.AT data as reference service. This means, that through the EVIS.AT and VAO eco system, public authorities are now able to push traffic messages and measures in about 30 apps and websites within minutes.
Internal tools of the various partners that implement EVIS.AT data and utilize it to optimize operation and traffic management include:
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GIS and maps tools: they are used for strategic planning but also for traffic management to get an overview of adjacent networks and traffic situations; see Fig. 1 for an example of ASFINAG’s Maps application.
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Winter service: EVIS.AT data is used in winter service applications. In return, they feedback traffic information from winter services to EVIS directly, i.e. snow closures, avalanche warnings and the like.
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Abnormal load management: abnormal loads (width, height, weight) need to be admitted by road authorities who take traffic, road and weather conditions into consideration. These authorities now also use EVIS.AT data to better evaluate and assess the suitability of certain routes (i.e. constructions)
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Operation planning and routing for emergency vehicles: certain traffic conditions or regulations (i.e. closures) are taken into account for route planning
Currently, there are also major efforts in place, to move towards Integrated Traffic Management in Austria to allow for policy making. Integrated Traffic Management is more than just integrating different data sources into a data hub. Main requirements are precise strategies and traffic management goals of politics and authorities as well as the legal delegation of traffic management duties to a capable platform that oversees the different networks and modes of transport. Additionally, the inclusion of several modes of transport, i.e. public transport and new mobility services will be included. In fall 2023, several projects on this topic were started by the major infrastructure and traffic information providers. The projects builds on EVIS.AT, VAO and other Austrian ITS platforms and datapools. Their main objective is to lay out a set up plan to introducing integrated traffic management in Austria.
The platform EVIS.AT will take on several roles in an “Integrated Traffic ´Management Austria”: it will provide harmonized base data for KPIs and road traffic overview to be gathered by traffic operation centers; the consortium will serve as a platform for policymaking and strategic decisions of the road operators; EVIS.AT will also serve as data distribution hub to disseminate the policies and traffic regulations of operative ad hoc traffic management to various end user services.
6 Conclusion
We showed that EVIS.AT established a platform and legal framework that includes the motorway operator, federal states, cities, automobile club and police, addressing much-needed harmonization issues with respect to real-time traffic data for a whole country.
The novelty of the approach lies in the strong and legally binding cooperation of all major stakeholders beyond administrative borders and harmonization for a whole country. While most European countries have “national access points” in place, that allow data owners and administrations to list or publish their data, these data sets are hardly harmonized and come in an abundance of data formats, dialects, extensions, semantics, update characteristics and bundling. The data sets are also not complete for larger regions and therefor very hard to use in wider services.
The EVIS.AT partners agreed upon data formats, definitions, message types and minimum standards for message creation. The definition of processes focused on clear responsibilities, local know-how and individual implementation. The cooperation agreements ensure complete coverage for all of Austria.
EVIS.AT has become an important and established part auf Austria’s ITS landscape, enabling administrations to publish data and generate end user and internal applications as well as third parties to use the real time traffic data in their services. The next step will be to utilize the platform for policymaking in the context of integrated traffic management – as data basis for road traffic as well as dissemination platform.
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