TMC

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TMC stands for Traffic Message Channel. Its purpose is to deliver information about traffic distortions or warnings to mobile receivers such as navigation devices. The information is contained in messages, which are broadcast together with radio broadcasts over FM radio. A specific radio receiver is needed to pick up this inaudible signal. Every message contains information about an event, such as a traffic jam, and the location of that event. Both are encoded as numbers referring to lookup tables - the event code list and location code list. The location code lists are issued by every country that in which TMC is provided, in some countries they are freely available. See the Wikipedia article about TMC for more information.

TMC data types

The TMC location code lists of the countries are the most interesting information for OpenStreetMap. They connect the location information from the TMC messages to geographical features. In particular, they contain all major streets, intersections and usually lots of usefully POIs (fuel-stations, border-crossings, ...).

The German location code list has been imported into OSM, see TMC/TMC_Import_Germany.

The TMC event code lists are more interesting for developers of routing software. They connect the event codes used in TMC messages to a description of the events at the specified location. Each event has an English description. Official translations of these descriptions are issued by the countries where TMC is available.

Tagging

There exist different tagging schemes for TMC data. Only the newest one is recommended for mapping new TMC data.

Proposed and currently recommended tagging scheme

The tagging scheme which is currently recommended for tagging TMC locations has been developed in long discussions in this forum thread. It uses a number of relations which are tagged in the form type=tmc:*, see the following pages for details:

The development of this tagging scheme is described in the following proposals:

Other proposals

An older proposal which is not currently in use can be found here: New TMC scheme.

Old TMC data

See TMC/TMC_Import_Germany#Tagging_Schema for the old tagging of imported TMC data in Germany, which is still in use and should remain in the database until its users have switched to the new tagging.

Mapping import helper and TMC location viewer

For a semi-automated import and quality check the TMC viewer and import helper can be used. It contains all TMC locations for the countries listed below. There is no need for mappers to obtain the location code lists themselves. The following purposes are served by the TMC viewer:

  • Display all TMC locations on a map.
  • Display the TMC data mapped in OSM in the new and recommended tagging scheme.
  • Import locations which are not already mapped into JOSM or Merkaartor via remote control.
  • Help finding the correct OSM objects to map by their old-style TMC tags.
  • Completeness and correctness check for type=tmc:point and type=tmc:link relations.

Available datasets

So far we have information about the following datasets:

Country Status Comment
Austria Not yet requested To be verified whether terms of use allow import; the request form asks for the intended use. --Stanton (talk) 21:05, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
Belgium Obtained for import, imported in mapping tool
Czech Republic Not yet requested Location tables are available at a fee of € 500. --Stanton (talk) 11:33, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
Denmark Not yet requested Search the catalog for TMC. Can be downloaded for free, but license is only for incorporation in navigation products in such a way that the tables cannot easily be separated from the product; any other use (likely also use in OSM) requires an individual agreement. --Stanton (talk) 00:13, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Finland Obtained for import, imported in mapping tool
France Obtained for import, imported in mapping tool Current dataset version: 12.1, dataset version in the tool: 10.1 --Nospam2005 (talk) 09:38, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
Germany Obtained for import, imported in mapping tool Import to OSM allowed, see DE:Kommunikation. --Lulu-Ann 14:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Italy Obtained for import, imported in mapping tool
Luxembourg Not yet requested --Stanton (talk) 22:43, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
Netherlands Received --Timkoers (talk) 19:58, 23 December 2021 (UTC) Can be requested via email to mail@servicedeskndw.nu</nowiki>

The dataset can be found here: https://t.me/osm_nl/6461

Norway Obtained for import, imported in mapping tool
Slovakia Not yet requested
Spain Obtained for import, imported in mapping tool Link down
Sweden Obtained for import, imported in mapping tool
Slovenia Not yet requested --Stanton (talk) 01:52, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
Switzerland Not yet requested Can be requested via email to info@astra.admin.ch