At a recent TomTom-organized conference to discuss issues related to the OpenLR (Open Location Referencing) standard, GEWI announced that it will fully implement OpenLR into is Traffic Information Center (TIC) software system by early 2014, which means that location referencing technology will be fully integrated into all of the main TIC features and may be purchased for use in projects in all TIC markets. A major factor in operating a traffic and travel service is the ability to ensure that the original location reference will result in the same location on a receiving device or system, even when a different location referencing method or map is used. If a location is encoded by a service provider using one map maker’s digital map data, but the receiving device or system uses a different map, then the location data is unlikely to be correctly understood.A solution to the problem is to use the license-free OpenLR, which acts as a translator or converter between two different maps. The OpenLR standard has been developed by TomTom as a method to encode, transmit and decode location data, irrespective of the digital road network used. At the meeting in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, organizations from the navigation, automotive, device and location based services (LBS) industries discussed he implementation of OpenLR. Several industry experts presented on a variety of topics and projects, including acquisition of public data, TPEG implementation, and methods to increase the success rate of accurately matching between different maps. The success rate is already good, with successful matching in 96.8% of cases between TomTom and HERE maps.
Published in Traffic Technology Today.com
