The Future of TransXML: Workshop Summary
Katherine F. Turnbull, Technical Activities Division, University of Washington · Transportation Research Board eBooks · 2014
Planning, designing, constructing, and operating transportation systems involve the exchange of large volumes of data. The lack of common data formats to facilitate the exchange of data across different business platforms has been a limiting factor for transportation agencies, vendors, contractors, and other groups. The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) represents a universal structured data transfer methodology that helps facilitate e-business and e-government. XML data structures, or schemas, provide a mechanism to develop and adopt common formats for data exchange. A National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) project completed in 2006 examined the potential of using the XML data structure in transportation and developed TransXML, an open vendor-neutral format for storing, exchanging, and archiving transportation data. This circular summarizes proceedings from a workshop that focused on potential future development and implementation of TransXML. The Workshop on the Future of TransXML had six general objectives: 1) communicate the content of existing TransXML schema and potential future schema; 2) discuss the benefits and business value of building on TransXML; 3) gain a better understanding of the activities critical to furthering development, adoption, and maintenance of TransXML; 4) explore partnership opportunities and alternative approaches; 5) identify a possible TransXML stewardship framework and process for developing, maintaining, and updating TransXML schema; and 6) identify potential follow-up activities. The major topics addressed in the morning general sessions are highlighted in this circular. The discussions in the afternoon working sessions are summarized and potential approaches for moving forward are presented.