Generalised Transportation-data Format (GTF): Data, Model and Machine Interaction
Otto Anker Nielsen, Benjamin Mandel, E. Ruffert · Technical University of Denmark, DTU Orbit (Technical University of Denmark, DTU) · 2001
Exchanging data and information between (strategic transport) models and between models and other software, e.g. GIS, is always a very tedious, if even possible, task. There is always the problem of loss of information because the exchanged data only seemingly contains the information required and there is also always the problem of inhomogeneous and proprietary data formats forcing the users of the data to re-format and re-combine the data from scratch every time. The solution to these problems is to understand that not only data needs to be transferred, but also the precise meaning of the data (meta-data). For the definition of information typically needed by strategic transport models a data model which precisely defines the data and information to be exchanged and for the exchange per se a standard format for electronic data interchange (EDI) is needed. The data model must be an information model which enables a user (typically an applications programmer) to use the building blocks specified in the data model, to define precisely the data and the information contained in the data to transfer. The exchange format should be based on a standard. In addition, an interchange protocol should be defined in order to make the whole process of running a model and retrieving results automatic. This paper defines such a data model (Generalised Transportation-data Format GTF) and proposes an exchange format (GTF-XML) based on standard XML which allows a software application (called a GTF Translator) to exchange information and data between models and between models and other software and proposes an interchange language to run models and retrieve results (TIP).