Datex2

Datex2 is an XML-based data exchange standard that allows traffic management centres, road authorities, and transport operators to share real-time traffic information in a structured, machine-readable format. It emerged from work by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and is now formally defined in EN ISO 19115, enabling interoperability across national borders and between systems built by different vendors.

The standard covers traffic incidents, congestion, road works, parking availability, public transport delays, weather hazards, and vehicle restrictions. Each piece of information is tagged with metadata including location codes, timestamp, severity level, and expected duration. This structure allows a traffic control centre in one city to send an accident notification to neighbouring regions, or a motorway operator to publish delays to multiple services simultaneously, without having to reformat the data for each recipient.

Datex2 exists in several profile subsets tailored to specific use cases: the traffic information profile handles incidents and congestion; the parking profile manages space availability; the vehicle data profile covers connected vehicle telemetry. Most EU member states have adopted Datex2 for their national traffic information exchanges, often mandated by the Intelligent Transport Systems Directive. Implementation varies: some centres use full-schema XML documents; others transmit only essential fields to reduce bandwidth on congested networks.

In practice, a traffic centre receives Datex2 feeds from multiple sources: loop detectors buried in road surfaces reporting speed and volume; police incident logs; road maintenance crews updating work zone perimeters; variable message signs relaying manually entered advisories. The centre then aggregates, validates, and repackages this data into outbound Datex2 feeds for distribution to navigation apps, variable message signs, and other downstream systems. Validation failures, malformed timestamps, or incomplete location references are common friction points.

The name reflects its predecessor, Datex, which was an earlier traffic data format with more limited scope and weaker standardization. Datex2 represents the second-generation approach: wider coverage, stricter schema enforcement, and explicit support for cross-border data flows. It remains distinct from other transport standards such as SIRI (public transport real-time data) and NTCIP (traffic signal control), though traffic centres often operate systems that speak all three languages.