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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2007. TransXML: XML Schemas for Exchange of Transportation Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14027.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2007. TransXML: XML Schemas for Exchange of Transportation Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14027.
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Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

TRANSPORTAT ION RESEARCH BOARD WASHINGTON, D.C. 2007 www.TRB.org N A T I O N A L C O O P E R A T I V E H I G H W A Y R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M NCHRP REPORT 576 Subject Areas Planning and Administration • Design • Highway Operations, Capacity, and Traffic Control TransXML: XML Schemas for Exchange of Transportation Data Eric Ziering Frances Harrison CAMBRIDGE SYSTEMATICS, INC. Cambridge, MA A N D Paul Scarponcini BENTLEY SYSTEMS, INC. Exton, PA W I T H INFO TECH, INC., Gainesville, FL MICHAEL BAKER JR. INC. Moon Township, PA CHARLES E. CAMPBELL Orangevale, CA Research Sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration

NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM Systematic, well-designed research provides the most effective approach to the solution of many problems facing highway administrators and engineers. Often, highway problems are of local interest and can best be studied by highway departments individually or in cooperation with their state universities and others. However, the accelerating growth of highway transportation develops increasingly complex problems of wide interest to highway authorities. These problems are best studied through a coordinated program of cooperative research. In recognition of these needs, the highway administrators of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials initiated in 1962 an objective national highway research program employing modern scientific techniques. This program is supported on a continuing basis by funds from participating member states of the Association and it receives the full cooperation and support of the Federal Highway Administration, United States Department of Transportation. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies was requested by the Association to administer the research program because of the Board’s recognized objectivity and understanding of modern research practices. The Board is uniquely suited for this purpose as it maintains an extensive committee structure from which authorities on any highway transportation subject may be drawn; it possesses avenues of communications and cooperation with federal, state and local governmental agencies, universities, and industry; its relationship to the National Research Council is an insurance of objectivity; it maintains a full-time research correlation staff of specialists in highway transportation matters to bring the findings of research directly to those who are in a position to use them. The program is developed on the basis of research needs identified by chief administrators of the highway and transportation departments and by committees of AASHTO. Each year, specific areas of research needs to be included in the program are proposed to the National Research Council and the Board by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Research projects to fulfill these needs are defined by the Board, and qualified research agencies are selected from those that have submitted proposals. Administration and surveillance of research contracts are the responsibilities of the National Research Council and the Transportation Research Board. The needs for highway research are many, and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program can make significant contributions to the solution of highway transportation problems of mutual concern to many responsible groups. The program, however, is intended to complement rather than to substitute for or duplicate other highway research programs. Published reports of the NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM are available from: Transportation Research Board Business Office 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 and can be ordered through the Internet at: http://www.national-academies.org/trb/bookstore Printed in the United States of America NCHRP REPORT 576 Project 20-64 ISSN 0077-5614 ISBN-13: 978-0-309-09872-4 Library of Congress Control Number 2007921915 © 2007 Transportation Research Board COPYRIGHT PERMISSION Authors herein are responsible for the authenticity of their materials and for obtaining written permissions from publishers or persons who own the copyright to any previously published or copyrighted material used herein. Cooperative Research Programs (CRP) grants permission to reproduce material in this publication for classroom and not-for-profit purposes. Permission is given with the understanding that none of the material will be used to imply TRB, AASHTO, FAA, FHWA, FMCSA, FTA, or Transit Development Corporation endorsement of a particular product, method, or practice. It is expected that those reproducing the material in this document for educational and not-for-profit uses will give appropriate acknowledgment of the source of any reprinted or reproduced material. For other uses of the material, request permission from CRP. NOTICE The project that is the subject of this report was a part of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program conducted by the Transportation Research Board with the approval of the Governing Board of the National Research Council. Such approval reflects the Governing Board’s judgment that the program concerned is of national importance and appropriate with respect to both the purposes and resources of the National Research Council. The members of the technical committee selected to monitor this project and to review this report were chosen for recognized scholarly competence and with due consideration for the balance of disciplines appropriate to the project. The opinions and conclusions expressed or implied are those of the research agency that performed the research, and, while they have been accepted as appropriate by the technical committee, they are not necessarily those of the Transportation Research Board, the National Research Council, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, or the Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. Each report is reviewed and accepted for publication by the technical committee according to procedures established and monitored by the Transportation Research Board Executive Committee and the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, the National Research Council, the Federal Highway Administration, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and the individual states participating in the National Cooperative Highway Research Program do not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers’ names appear herein solely because they are considered essential to the object of this report.

CRP STAFF FOR NCHRP REPORT 576 Robert J. Reilly, Director, Cooperative Research Programs Crawford F. Jencks, Manager, NCHRP Christopher J. Hedges, Senior Program Officer Eileen P. Delaney, Director of Publications NCHRP PROJECT 20-64 PANEL Field of Special Projects Loren Risch, Kansas DOT (Chair) Steven C. Brown, Nebraska DOR Roemer M. Alfelor, FHWA Todd R. Bergland, Minnesota DOT Terry Hale, New York State DOT Maurice Harmon, HNTB Corporation Liang Y. Hsia, Florida DOT David C. Lively, California DOT Sandra B. Salazar, Johns Hopkins University Gregory T. Witt, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet James Pol, FHWA Liaison Representative James Ramsey, AASHTO Liaison Thomas Palmerlee, TRB Liaison Representative Ray Krammes, Other Liaison C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M S AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors wish to thank the following individuals who provided valuable input and perspectives on transportation data exchange needs during the course of this effort: The NCHRP Project Manager, Christopher Hedges; the members of the NCHRP Project Panel, Jim Ramsey, Loren Risch, Steven Brown, Roemer Alfelor, Todd Bergland, Lyman (Terry) Hale, Maurice Har- mon, Liang Hsia, David Lively, Thomas Rioux, Sandra Salazar, and Gregory Witt; the FHWA liaison, James Pol; the AASHTO liaison, Mary Beth Leaf; Nathan Crews of LandXML; Chuck Conley of AASHTO; Jennifer Whitted of Natek, Inc.; Carl Gonder of Alaska DOT; Michael Griffith of FHWA; Steve Jackson of Idaho DOT; and the many individuals who actively participated in the TransXML community website.

This report develops a proposed common framework for exchange of transportation data in eXtensible Markup Language, known as TransXML. This framework can be used for developing, validating, disseminating, and extending current and future schemas. The research team conducted an extensive review of current XML efforts in the transportation sector, identified specific gaps and opportunities, and developed a plan to address the high- est priority needs. The team developed a number of pilot schemas and applications, as well as recommendations for tools and platforms that can simplify XML coding for other trans- portation applications. The report summarizes the benefits that can be achieved by the adoption and expansion of TransXML, and outlines future efforts that will be needed to ensure its success. The planning, design, construction, maintenance, and operation of transportation infrastructure all require exchanging large volumes of data. Until recently, transportation agencies have been hindered by the lack of common data formats that would facilitate the exchange of data across different platforms and applications. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) has proven to be a universal structured data-transfer methodology with great potential for the transportation sector. Originally designed to meet the challenges of large- scale electronic publishing, XML is also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the web and elsewhere. XML data structures, known as schemas, provide a mechanism to develop and adopt common formats for data exchange. The XML schemas that are of interest to AASHTO and its member departments typi- cally support transportation infrastructure-related business processes in local, state, and federal departments of transportation (DOTs) as well as the work of their partners. These schemas are of equal interest to vendors who develop software products to support the transportation industry. There are currently several open consortia of private- and public- sector organizations working to create schemas to support the transportation industry, including LandXML, aecXML, ITS XML, and OpenGIS. For some transportation applica- tions, XML schemas do not yet exist, but their availability would facilitate the exchange of transportation data broadly across multiple business areas in a format independent of the software that produced it. However, there existed no formal mechanism or framework within the transportation community to develop and maintain XML schemas, promote schema consistency and acceptance, solicit broader input, and build consensus. There is a need for development and long-term support of XML schemas for exchange of transportation data that are widely accepted, thoroughly documented, and published on the Internet for access by any organization or individual. The long-term vision is an overall set of XML schemas for transportation applications in a framework to be called TransXML. F O R E W O R D By Christopher J. Hedges Staff Officer Transportation Research Board

Under NCHRP Project 20-64, a research team led by Cambridge Systematics developed XML schemas in four pilot business areas in the transportation sector: roadway design, construction/materials, bridge structures, and transportation safety. Sample applications were developed for each of the schema to demonstrate their use. Data models were devel- oped for each schema using Unified Modeling Language (UML). Geographic Markup Lan- guage (GML) was used as a consistent framework for XML coding across the four areas. This final report is accompanied by several appendices in electronic format that can be downloaded at http://trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=7338. These include (1) a detailed review of the XML schema and relevant data standards, (2) a summary of an experiment that led to a recommendation to use a common features profile within GML to simplify the generation of XML code, (3) UML models used as the primary design tool for the Trans- XML schemas, and (4) the actual TransXML schemas and applications developed in this project. This project should serve as the beginning of an effort that will become a broad umbrella for a wide variety of interrelated data exchange formats in all areas of transportation data exchange. The success of TransXML will rely on a sustained effort over time by the trans- portation community. Communication must continue among all of the stakeholders involved in business processes that require the exchange of data; those who will be the pri- mary beneficiaries of common data exchange formats.

C O N T E N T S 1 Summary 5 Section 1 Introduction 5 1.1 Research Context 6 1.2 Research Objectives 6 1.3 Research Approach 7 1.4 Contents of Report 9 Section 2 Surface Transportation Data Exchange Needs 9 2.1 Overview 9 2.2 Roadway Survey/Design 9 2.3 Transportation Construction/Materials 10 2.4 Highway Bridge Structures 10 2.5 Transportation Safety 10 2.6 Broader Framework for TransXML 13 Section 3 Current Practice Review 13 3.1 Overview of Existing Schema and Standards 20 3.2 Screening and Evaluation of Schema and Standards 22 Section 4 Gaps and Opportunities for TransXML 22 4.1 Criteria for Identifying XML Schema Candidates 23 4.2 Roadway Survey/Design 26 4.3 Transportation Construction/Materials 29 4.4 Highway Bridge Structures 30 4.5 Transportation Safety 32 Section 5 TransXML Process and Products 32 5.1 Schema Development Process 32 5.2 Technical Framework for TransXML 35 5.3 Stakeholder Involvement 36 5.4 UML Modeling 37 5.5 GML Encoding and Validation 38 5.6 TransXML Schema and Sample Applications 45 Section 6 Future Stewardship of TransXML 45 6.1 Introduction 45 6.2 Existing Models for XML Stewardship 46 6.3 Lessons Learned 48 6.4 Goals and Mission Statement for the TransXML Project 49 6.5 Function and Roles of a TransXML Stewardship Organization 50 6.6 Criteria for TransXML Stewardship 51 6.7 Recommended Model for TransXML Stewardship 51 6.8 Work Plan for the TransXML Project

54 Section 7 References 55 Appendices A Through F 56 Appendix G: Additional Feedback on Schemas and UML Models 58 Acronyms

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TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 576, TransXML: XML Schemas for Exchange of Transportation Data examines a proposed common framework for exchange of transportation data in eXtensible Markup Language, known as TransXML. The framework is designed to be used for developing, validating, disseminating, and extending current and future schemas. The report also explores the benefits that might be achieved by the adoption and expansion of TransXML, and highlights efforts designed to help ensure its success.

NCHRP Report 576 Appendices include the following:

Appendix A - Detailed Review of XML Schema

Appendix B - Geographic Markup Language (GML) Experiment Summary Report

Appendix C - Unified Modeling Language (UML) Models in pdf format

Appendix D - Unified Modeling Language (UML) Models in xmi format

Appendix E - XML Schema Files

Appendix F - Sample Applications

A link to the download site for the appendices and to instructions on burning an .ISO CD-ROM are below.

Help on Burning an .ISO CD-ROM Image

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