Gewi, the German developer of one of the most widely-used off-the-shelf software systems for managing roadway information, Traveler Information Center (TIC), has recently launched a traffic news system for German public radio stations.
In July 2016, Gewi was selected, after a public bidding process, to provide a traffic news system for Hessischer Rundfunk (HR), a public radio station for the German state of Hesse, based in Frankfurt. HR is a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which includes organizations such as the BBC in the UK. The public tender required a solution to collect, create and aggregate traffic information to be broadcast on the HR stations, which include five different radio formats. The traffic information is also distributed to TV channels, internet platforms, and a telephone hotline. Navigation systems can receive their data by RDS-TMC (radio data system – traffic message channel) and TPEG (transport protocol experts group).
The HR traffic solution is based on the TIC for Traffic News system and was deployed in less than six months after the bid was awarded to Gewi. As of January 2017, the new system is in productive use by HR. TIC for Traffic News supports multiple languages and enables each announcer to customize the traffic reports, based on the type of content and length of broadcast required for their particular station format. All of this is accomplished using a simple web browser, which also makes it convenient to operate when announcers are out of the studio on a remote broadcast. TIC for Traffic News is used by radio broadcasters in Germany and Switzerland and is available as a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) system to be used worldwide. Traffic News is just one of the many solutions for which the TIC Software may be configured. Deployed worldwide by both commercial and government customers, TIC is used for many types of traffic related projects, including traffic and travel events, road incident management, navigation testing, real-time navigation, and connected services.
Gewi recently announced a new global partnership with Waze, the free, real-time crowdsourced traffic and navigation app powered by the world’s largest community of drivers, to provide public agencies worldwide with an ‘off-the-shelf’ system for collecting, harmonizing, and integrating Waze data with existing public agency data using Gewi’s TIC software. This partnership is facilitated through the Waze Connected Citizens Program, a free two-way data share that empowers its partners to harness real-time driver insights in order to help ease congestion and make better informed planning decisions.
“As a global company, this partnership is an excellent fit between us and Waze,” commented Gewi founder and global CEO, Hagen Geppert. “Our customers worldwide can now have access to Waze data directly within the TIC Software platform, enabling Waze data to be immediately related with other agency data already in their system, and the improved data can also be shared back to Waze. We expect his two-way data exchange between Gewi customers and Waze to be a powerful tool to help increase data accuracy.”
