ITS Backbone

NOTICE
Funding for Loop Data Feed has not been Renewed

About the Smart Trek ITS Backbone:

The Smart Trek MDI ITS Backbone is a set of paradigms and protocols designed to tie ITS applications together. Applications in this context are a set of components that:

extract ITS data from source agencies, modify that data, redistribute it to ISP's, add value to the data, and present it to travelers.

The backbone is built around two key concepts: A Component Architecture: described in "A Structured Approach to Developing Real-Time, Distributed Network Applications for ITS Deployment," and Self Describing Data: described in "A Self Describing Data Transfer Methodology for ITS Applications."

The ITS Backbone Software Library implements the concepts from these two papers. In particular, it provides three types of components:

1. A redistributor component that allows a single data stream to be replicated for many clients.
2. Two interfaces for receivers:
   1. A GUI-based generic receiver
   2. A flexible and re-usable command line interface
3. An example transmitter is available to guide you in creating your own transmitter.

In addition, programmers can use the software to create new components, add new streams, modify existing streams, or perform special-purpose tasks with the data in a stream.

Using the SDD software described here, you can connect to a number of SDD streams available on the ITS backbone. The streams are listed on our SDD streams page.

The relationship of SDD to NTCIP is discussed in a white paper. (PDF version)

The Data Flow Status Page summarizes the operation of some important backbone components. Click on one of the data flow links there to see a picture of how the applications are connected.