One of the pioneers behind the UK’s first commercial real-time traffic information service has looked back on the creation of RDS Traffic Message Channel (TMC), following the end of the service after 25 years of operation.
In a personal retrospective published on LinkedIn, ITS industry expert Danny Woolard recounts how a chance conversation in a pub in Lincolnshire helped lay the foundations for a technology that would become standard equipment in millions of satellite navigation systems.
Mr Woolard explains how his GPS technology business unexpectedly became involved in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions’ plans to introduce RDS-TMC to the UK in the late 1990s, after the BBC decided not to support the proposed service. That led to his company joining the Government-backed consortium developing what would become Europe’s first commercial broadcast traffic information service.
His article traces the evolution of the technology through the formation of ITIS, the successful bid for the AS1 licence on Classic FM, and the launch of the UK’s national TMC service in 2001. Along the way, he recalls working alongside many of the leading figures in the ITS sector, automotive industry and Government, as manufacturers including Toyota, BMW, Ford, Nissan and Daimler adopted the service for their vehicles. Those colleagues include the country’s leading connected vehicle expert Andy Graham, who consulted on the project, and now Highways News editor Paul Hutton, who led the team providing the real-time journalistic information feed.
The retrospective also highlights how the service helped establish many of the foundations of today’s connected mobility landscape, from floating car data and real-time congestion information to international standards work through the TMC Forum, which later evolved into TISA. Woolard argues that while Google, Waze and connected vehicle services have now overtaken broadcast traffic information, the pioneering spirit behind RDS-TMC still has lessons for the industry today.
Reflecting on the closure of the service by INRIX after a quarter of a century, Mr Woolard estimates that more than a billion individual traffic messages were broadcast during its lifetime. He says the achievement was made possible by collaboration between Government, industry and technology partners willing to take risks and try something new, adding that he would like to see that same spirit of innovation return to transport technology.
You can read Danny Woolard’s full first-hand account, including behind-the-scenes stories from the development of RDS-TMC, the people who helped make it happen and his reflections on the legacy of one of the ITS industry’s most influential technologies, here.
(Picture – Danny Woolard)
