Mapping ITS Infrastructure (Intelligent transport systems)

General talk Tagging general discussion
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Hi all,

I would like to explore how ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) infrastructure can be appropriately represented in OpenStreetMap from a user and data-consumer perspective.

A concrete example are Road Side Units (RSUs) installed at signalized intersections. These devices broadcast information such as signal phase and timing (SPaT) or intersection configuration via wireless communication (e.g., ITS-G5 / C-ITS). From a mapping standpoint, they are physically attached to traffic signals or nearby infrastructure, but functionally they represent a digital extension of the traffic control system. Knowledge of locations can provide benefit for: users and routers that consider ITS-services in their decisions as well as the public to observe roll-out of these systems (compare to surveillance cameras)

My questions and points of discussion:

  • Is there an established tagging scheme for such ITS devices, or related proposals?

  • Should RSUs be mapped as separate nodes (e.g., as communication equipment), or integrated into existing traffic signal tagging?

  • How can we meaningfully capture their functional role (data broadcasting, protocol type, coverage) without overcomplicating the tagging system?

The goal would be to find a pragmatic way to map relevant physical ITS infrastructure useful for users and general public interested in traffic infrastructure and broadcasted traffic data.

I would appreciate any pointers to existing discussions, tagging practices, or proposals.

Thanks for any input.

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I hope it is ok, if what I write is just related to the topic but does not answer your question.

At the Grazer Linuxtage, an open source community conference in Graz, there has been a talk about a project on how to receive signals from ITS. The talk has been published at: C-ITS: Mit einem ESP32 Ampeln, Straßenbahnen und Autos tracken - media.ccc.de

The website, on which the results are shown is available under: https://opentrafficmap.org

By now, all of the traffic signals in Graz have been added at least once, a majority is received with live updates. Some other Austrian cities like Vienna, Klagenfurt and Wels are also shown with first infrastructure. In Germany first data is recorded from Regensburg and Münster.

Yours,
Stefan

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You’d be looking at a Tag:man_made=street_cabinet - OpenStreetMap Wiki , which already has provision for Tag:man_made=street_cabinet - OpenStreetMap Wiki

That could be easily expanded with further information as you see fit.

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  1. Physically, =street_cabinet has been mentioned. Functionally, these may be the closest, or basically none.
  1. As distinguished above, both can be done. The 2 aspects serve different purposes. Fundamentally, the difficulty might be there’s not even any placeholder/skeleton schema for the attributes (especially signal stages/phasing/timing/MoC, but also not even identifying a single intersection universally). Anyway, using web-based services to illustrate, overall info can be website= , and specific ones *:url= (opening_hours:url= )/ *:feed= (may be preferable to distinguish dynamic vs static ones).
  2. It’s difficult to determine this without knowing its complexity