“VmsTablePublication” package semantics - general¶

The “VmsTablePublication” class shall be a specific realisable class as specialisation of “PayloadPublication”. Each “VmsTablePublication” may contain a number of separate VMS controller tables.

The information in the “VmsTablePublication” shall relate to the VMS controllers and their controlled VMS currently deployed on the road, and shall contain the static characteristics of those devices at a specified point in time. However, the characteristics and configuration of any VMS given in the “VmsTablePublication” shall be overridden by any corresponding characteristics and configuration that are given in a “VmsPublication” for the same VMS when those configuration and characteristics may be dynamically managed.

Some of the individual classes used within the “VmsTablePublication” package, principally those for modelling the characteristics of a VMS, also reside in the “VmsConfiguration” package which is within the “Classes” package as they are also used in the “VmsPublication” package”.

“VmsTablePublication” Class¶

The “VmsTablePublication” class shall be the top-level class for containing the published VMS controller tables.

“HeaderInformation” Class

Each instance of a “VmsTablePublication” shall have associated metadata contained in an instance of the “HeaderInformation” class which shall be used to specify how the recipient should treat the information contained in it. For “HeaderInformation” class refer to EN 16157-7.

“InternationalIdentifier” class¶

An international identifier may be associated to a VMS table to define which organisation manages its information. This class belongs to the “Common” package defined in EN 16157-7.

“VmsControllerTable” Class¶

An identifiable versioned instance of the “VmsControllerTable” class shall contain any logical collection of “VmsController”. A supplier may choose to provide a textual identification for a particular “VmsControllerTable” to clarify the logical collection of “VmsController”.

It may be possible to specify the organisation which manages the table information by the “informationManager” association to the “InternationalIdentifier” class.

“VmsController” Class¶

An identifiable versioned instance of the “VmsController” class shall contain the characteristics information relating to a specific VMS controller. Each record shall have one or more indexed “Vms” sub-records for containing the characteristics of the individual VMS that are controlled by the VMS controller. The “vmsIndex” qualifier provides a means for a given “VmsStatus” instance (in the VMS publication) to be referenced to the corresponding instance of the “Vms” class at the VMS controller.

“Vms” Class¶

An instance of the “Vms” class shall be used to provide the static characteristics of a VMS. The location of the VMS may be defined via the composition to “vmsLocation”. Any location that is managed by the VMS such as a car park or junction may be defined via a composition with the “VmsManagedLogicalLocation” class.

The “Location” class shall be used to identify details of the location where a VMS is physically situated or the location in which the VMS is logically considered to be located for its management, in case this is different from the physical location. The “Location” class and its components are defined in EN 16157-2.

The composition “imageLink” can be defined where a URL link can provide an image of the VMS. For “UrlLink” class refer to EN 16157-7.

The association to VmsConfiguration class allows specification of all static configuration information of the VMS. This information can be overridden by the configuration information which may be delivered in a VMS Status Publication through association to the same VmsConfiguration class which is described in the dedicated package clauses of this document (ref. subclause 4.2).

“VmsPublication” package semantics - general¶

The “VmsPublication” class shall be a specific realisable case of a “PayloadPublication”. Each “VmsPublication” may contain a number of separate sets of information, each relating to a set of VMS controllers and their controlled VMS.

The information related to each VMS controllers and their controlled VMS in the “VmsPublication” class, shall specify their status and the message or the messages that have actually been set on the VMS at a stated time.

NOTE The information in the “VmsPublication” relates to the current state of VMS controller and relative VMS deployed on the road, and not to any state information at the control centre, such as “pending” or “queued” or to any prioritised lists of messages which will be displayed at some point in the future.

“VmsPublication” Class

The “VmsPublication” class shall be the top-level class for containing the published VMS information.

“HeaderInformation” Class

Each instance of a “VmsPublication” shall have associated metadata contained in an instance of the “HeaderInformation” class which shall be used to specify how the recipient of the “VmsPublication” should treat the information contained in it. For “HeaderInformation” class refer to EN 16157-7.

“VmsConfiguration” package semantics – general¶

The “VmsConfiguration” package shall comprise a “VmsConfiguration” class which has one or more indexed components where each component shall model the details of an individual display area related to all VMS component by composition to “DisplayArea” class.

A “DisplayArea” class may have an association to “Lane” to specify the lane to which the VMS is related when the associated lane is not specified, or it is different from what specified, by the VMS physical or managed location information. The associated lane can be defined both in VMS Table Publication when this association is considered static information or in VMS Publication when it is considered dynamic information.

A “DisplayArea” may be associated to one “DisplayGeometry” class which can be instantiated to define specific geometrical information of any display areas and their position in the overall VMS geometry.

“VmsConfiguration” class¶

The “VmsConfiguration” class provides the current configuration and characteristics information for the VMS which can be static or dynamically configured.

“DisplayArea” class¶

The “DisplayArea” class shall be used to define each individual display areas as they are configured for the VMS. A DisplayArea can be either generic or assigned to be a display area of a fixed type (text, pictogram or supplementary panel) through a specialisation.

Each display area on a VMS is referenced by its “displayAreaIndex” and it details its position relative to the VMS itself or its absolute position. As convention it is recommended to order the areas as they appear on the sign from left to right and top to bottom.

The DisplayArea class attributes allow the description of relative positional information among the various display by which the VMS is composed. Attribute “sequencingCapable” may be used to provide an indication of whether the VMS is capable to display multiple text pages, which are automatically displayed in a defined sequence and at a defined frequency rate. A maximum number of sequential pages may be specified by “maxNumberOfSequentialPages” attribute.

“Lane” class¶

The “Lane” class shall be used to supply information about the lane to which the VMS is associated. The “Lane” class and its components are defined in EN 16157-2.

“DisplayGeometry” class¶

The “DisplayGeometry” class shall be used to specify the geometric characteristics of a display area.

“TextDisplayArea” class¶

The “TexDisplayArea” class shall be used to describe the configuration characteristics of any text display area associated to the VMS, both as a static configuration instantiated at VMS Table publication or as dynamic configuration associated to a VMS status in a VMS publication. The characteristics for the text display area optionally include area dimensions (in pixels and metric measurements), font sizes, number of characters and rows, details of text area positioning on the VMS panel and the maximum luminance level.

The attribute “textCodeListIdentifier” may be used to identify what list of legends or texts are being used by the VMS. Usually specific deployments of VMS across a road network or part of a network will use defined sets of legends or texts which are specified by the road authority/operator and are consistent with the display capabilities of the specific VMS. This attribute allows the identity of this list to be disseminated.

“PictogramDisplayArea” class¶

The “PictogramDisplayArea” shall be used to describe the characteristics of any pictogram display area associated to the VMS.

The characteristics for the pictogram display area include area dimensions (in pixels and metric measurements), details of the positioning of the area on the VMS panel.

The attribute “pictogramCodeListIdentifier” may be used to identify what list of pictograms are being used by the VMS. Usually specific deployments of VMS across a road network or part of a network will use defined sets of pictograms which are specified by the road authority/operator and are consistent with the display capabilities of the specific VMS. This attribute allows the identity of this list to be disseminated.

“SupplementaryPanelArea” class¶

The “SupplementaryPanelArea” shall be used to describe the characteristics of any supplementary panel area associated with a specific pictogram area.

“VmsStatus” package semantics - general¶

The “VmsStatus” package shall comprise a “VmControllerStatus” class which has one or more indexed components where each component shall model the details of an individual VMS that is controlled by the VMS controller.

The static characteristics of each VMS shall be identified by using an indexed reference into a specified object in a “VmsControllerTable” published in a “VmsTablePublication” (see clause 2). Alternatively, where VMS configuration can be set dynamically, these may be given directly in this publication, which, when provided, shall override any static characteristics defined in the referenced object in the “VmsControllerTable”.

“VmsControllerStatus” class¶

An instance of the “VmsControllerStatus” class shall represent the status of a single VMS controller at the roadside which may control one or more VMS. Through the “VmsControllerFault” class fault information can be associated with each “VmsController” class instance.

Each VMS controlled by a VMS controller is referenced by its “vmsIndex” qualifier. The “vmsIndex” qualifier provides an index into the specific “Vms” within the relevant “VmsController” (see VmsTablePublication in clause 2), from where the static VMS configuration information that are relevant for the VMS can be obtained. These VmsController instances are contained in a referenced VmsUnitTable that is published in a VmsTablePublication.

The attribute “vmsControllerTableReference” shall be used to provide a reference to an instance of a “VmsControllerTable” that is published in a “VmsTablePublication”. This reference shall point to the relevant table which holds the instance containing the details for this VMS controller.

The attribute “vmsControllerReference” shall be used to provide a reference to an instance of a “VmsController” within the referenced “VmsControllerTable” that is published in a “VmsTablePublication”.

An aggregation to a number of instances of the “VmsControllerFault” class allow to provide fault information relating to a variable message sign controller. More than one type of fault may exist at the same time. VmsControllerFault class information is described in the VmsFaultPackage description (see sub-clause 4.5.2.3.

“VmsStatus” class

An instance of the “VmsStatus” class shall represent a single VMS status which shall be used to define VMS dynamic configuration, any current fault status of the VMS and its message(s) displayed by VMS.

Each VMS has a location which can be defined in the referenced instance of a specific “VmsUnitTable” instance. Note that it is the location of the individual VMS which is to be provided, not the location of the VMS controller which controls them.

Where the location of a VMS is dynamic or has changed recently, the current location shall be provided as a composition (“vmsLocationOverride”) to the “VmsStatus” class instance, which shall override any location given in a referenced “VmsControllerTable”. Similarly, any location, which a VMS is used to manage such as a car park or a road junction, that has changed recently, can be provided via the “managedLogicalLocationOverride” composition, again, which shall override any managed location given in the relevant “VmsControllerTable” entry. The “Location” class and its components are defined in EN 16157-2.

An aggregation to a number of instances of the “VmsFault” class allow to provide fault information relating to the variable message sign. More than one type of fault may exist at the same time. VmsFault class information is described in the VmsFaultPackage description (see sub-clause 4.5.2.44.5)

An instance of the “VmsConfiguration” class through the vmsDynamicConfiguration association can be associated to the VMS Status, in the case the VMS characteristics information defined by the “VMSConfiguration” associated to the “VmsStatus” shall override any characteristics given in the referenced object of the “VmsUnitTable”.

A VMS may be set to display a sequence of messages in a defined order, where each message comprises a combination of text pages and/or pictograms. In this case, the “messageIndex” qualifier shall be used to distinguish the individual messages, their order of display and a messages sequencing interval (sequencingInterval attribute) may be specified to state the time frequency of the subsequent displayed messages. The VMS Message semantics is described in the “VmsMessage” package at subclause 4.44.4.

“ManagedLocation” Class¶

The “ManagedLocation” class shall be used to associate to a VMS the location (e.g. a car park, a section of road, a junction etc.), which the VMS contributes to manage. “Location” class associated as managed location and all its specialised and associated classes and their attributes are defined in EN 16157-2.

“VmsMessage” package semantics - general¶

The “VmsMessage” package shall comprise a “VmsMessage” class which has a number of indexed display area settings specialised for each one of the individual display areas defined at VMS configuration.

Display area settings can implement multipage or single page text displays, which are structured in one or more “single line text” areas, or a number of pictograms with optional supplementary information displayed in one or more pictograms including their possible supplementary panel display.

Where multiple pages are specified for display, either in the text or pictogram display area, the order in which they are displayed is identified by the “pageNumber” qualifier order. In this case the “sequencingInterval” attribute on the “VmsMessage” class may be specified to describe the time interval used for page sequencing.

Each text page is described by the sequence of its text lines which display a text line string which can be related to one or more information significant to road users.

For each pictogram display area used by a VMS message, a sequence of separate pictograms may be specified as being displayed in that area. Each of the pictograms may be associated to a supplementary information display which can be displayed by the relative supplementary panel area.

The supplementary information display can be used to display one line of text or a graphics represented by a supplementary pictogram.

Pictogram graphic information with optional supplementary information can be represented by a GDD coding when available. Pictograms which are not managed in GDD can be specified by a description which is defined in specialised classes for regular and composite pictograms. Numerical information, up to 2 numbers, associated to a pictogram shall be managed by specific displayed numerical information class.

“VmsMessage” Class¶

An instance of the “VmsMessage” class, which is referenced by its “messageIndex” qualifier by the “VmsStatus” class, shall be used to identify the details of the message currently being displayed on the VMS’s text display areas, the various pictogram display areas as well as the supplementary panel display areas, which may exist to support the pictogram display areas, as described by the VMS VMSConfiguration, both at VMS table publication or at VMS Status.

The “messageIndex” qualifier on the association with the “VmsStatus” class shall indicate the order of display of the messages if there are multiple messages specified, the sequence continuously cycling. If there is only one message being displayed the “messageIndex” shall have a value of “1”. When a VMS displays several messages a sequencing interval can be specified to express the time frequency messages are displayed one after the other.

A combination of message information type may be associate to the VMS message to specify the main information displayed by the message. A coded reason for setting can be used to express the main purpose of the message e.g. situation related information, campaign, default message (i.e. no road related information), etc.

When message information is related to a specific situation or situation record, this may be specified by setting the corresponding attribute “situationReference” and “situationRecordReference” which shall contain respectively the reference to the specific situation or the versioned reference to the specific situation record, to which the message is related. This reference information shall be related to “Situation” and “SituationRecord” classes which are defined in EN 16157-3.

A VMS message is associated to the VMS display area settings through an indexed association identified by displayAreaIndex number which shall match the number used to specify the corresponding display areas in VMS configuration. Where a “SupplementaryInformationDisplay” instance is supplied as subordinate to a “PictogramDisplay” instance, it shall not be repeated in this collection.

An image can be associated to the “VmsMessage” by association to “Image” class, which represent the overall VMS information displayed on the VMS as an image.

“DisplayAreaSettings” Class¶

A “DisplayAreaSetting” class shall be used to define the display of any VMS configuration component and is specialised in one of the “TextDisplay”, “MultiPageDisplay”, “PictogramDisplay”, “SupplementaryInformationDisplay” classes.

Where a “SupplementaryInformationDisplay” instance is supplied as subordinate to a “PictogramDisplay” instance, it should not be repeated in this collection.

When the display area is set to blank, i.e. it shows no information, the related “isBlank” attribute shall be set to true.

“MultiPageDisplay”¶

The “MultiPageDisplay” class shall be used to describe a display, either text or pictogram display, which shows multiple pages across time, sequentially displayed in order of their “pageNumber”. Sequencing, if used, shall be assumed to continuously cycle through the ordered display pages at a constant rate (the corresponding sequencing interval can be specified in the “VmsMessage” class).

The “pageNumber” qualifier shall be used to indicate the order of sequencing of the pages of display, the value of “1” indicating the first page.

“TextDisplay” Class¶

An instance of the “TextDisplay” class shall be used to identify what text is displayed in the text display area, or as part of a multi-page display, and what it looks like on the VMS. Where multiple lines of text are defined each is referenced by its “lineIndex” qualifier and is ordered accordingly

The attribute “vmsTextCode” shall identify the code of the text from the text code list referenced in the “TextDisplayArea” class (see subclause 4.2.2.6). Typically, this will use the individual road authority’s/operator’s coding scheme for the different text messages.

Line break detail is specified by providing an indexed sequence of instances of the “TextLine” class, which gives the actual text strings for each line.

“TextLine” class¶

An instance of the “TextLine” class shall be used to identify what text is displayed on a single line in the text display area, or in the supplementary text related to supplementary information display. It also allows the language and the colour of the text line to be specified, and whether it is flashing or has any special formatting applied to it. Each line of text coded as a string is used to give the evidence of the exact text which is displayed on the VMS text line. This text is exact except when special characters are used which can implement non language character symbols: based on this option the “isExactTextOnSign” attribute can be set to express when “textLine” string is the exact text displayed or not.

When needed the text line language can be specified for each of the text lines displayed. Text information type may be set to address a multiplicity of coded information type which are described in the single text line, e.g. location, destination, situation, etc.

The “lineIndex” qualifier shall be used to indicate the order of the lines of text, the value of “1” indicating the top or first line of the text.

“PictogramDisplay” class¶

An instance of the “PictogramDisplay” class shall be used for association to a pictogram that is being displayed on a specific pictogram display which is configured for the VMS, both as single pictogram display or as part of a multi-page display.

When a pictogram display is the primary pictogram information, by application level rules or VMS Message general understanding, this may be specified by setting the corresponding “isPrimaryPictogram” attribute.

An “Image” class instance can be associated to the “PictogramDisplay” which represent the graphical displayed pictogram as an image.

“Pictogram” class¶

An instance of the “VmsPictogram” class shall be used to identify the pictogram graphics which is currently displayed, in the specified pictogram display area configured for the VMS.

The relationship among Pictograms and its specialised and aggregate class is shown in figure 8 .

Figure 8 — The “Pictogram” class diagram

A pictogram can be either a regular pictogram which is intended to provide one specific graphics, but it can be also a composite pictograms which combines 2 different kind of graphics to enable description of specific road topology configuration where a pictogram information can be relevant, e.g. on the exit, after the next exit combined with any regular pictogram, such as roadworks or network restrictions.

A pictogram should be coded by GDD using the related association to “GDDStructure” class, which is fully described in sub-clause 4.6.2.2. When the GDD code is not defined for the pictogram, besides the coded description managed in “RegularPictogram” and “CompositePictogram” classes which enable to specify some general pictograms which had not been coded in GDD, an extra textual description of the displayed pictogram can be set by the “additionalDescription” attribute and a custom pictogram code can be specified as string.

“RegularPictogram” class¶

An instance of the “RegularPictogram” class shall be used to describe a regular pictogram. A “pictogramDescription” attribute may be used to address a non GDD pictogram among a list of predefined pictogram (see PictogramEnum at Annex A.4.11).

Up to 2 numerical information can be associated to pictogram, e.g. as speed limit or distance, this information can be addressed by the specific “DisplayedNumericalInformation” class.

“DisplayedNumericalInformation” class¶

An instance of the “DisplayedNumericalInformation” shall be used to describe the numerical information associated to a regular pictogram and its unit of measure (e.g. speed expressed as km/h or miles/h).

“CompositePictogram” class¶

An instance of the “CompositePictogram” class shall be used to describe a composite pictogram. A pictogramDescription attribute may be used to to specify the composite pictogram type among a list of predefined pictogram (see CompositePictogramEnum at Annex A.4.3).

“SupplementaryInformationDisplay” class¶

An instance of the “SupplementaryInformationDisplay” class shall be used to identify what is displayed on the panel which is supplementary to a pictogram display (generally below it). A supplementary panel can display one and only one line of text or a single supplementary pictogram. The textual description of what is displayed in the supplementary panel as a single line text may be provided by association to the “SupplementaryText” class.

“SupplementaryPictogram” class¶

An instance of the “SupplementaryPictogram” class shall be used to identify what pictogram is displayed on the supplementary panel. This will generally be one from a limited set i.e. from a list of supplementary pictogram description.”SupplementaryText” class

An instance of the “SupplementaryText” class shall be used to specify one and only one text line which is displayed in a supplementary information display associated with a pictogram, by its association to the “TextLine” class.

“Image” class¶

An instance of “Image” class shall be used to specify an image by the exact image binary content, coded as base 64, in any of the available commonly used image formats allowed.

The attribute “imageData” contains the image binary information coded as base 64 binary.

The attribute “imageFormat” specifies which format is used to encode the image, e.g. gif, png, bmp, tiff formats.

“VmsFault” package semantics – general¶

This package describes information about faults for only VMS and VMS controllers.

“Fault” class¶

The “Fault” class shall be used to supply information about a fault relating to a specific piece of equipment or process. The “Fault” class and its components are defined in EN 16157-7.

“VmsControllerFault” class¶

The “VmsControllerFault” class shall be used to provide information of faults related to VMS controllers. Each instance of a “VmsControllerFault” inherits fault details from the “Fault” class, which, at a minimum, shall contain the time that the fault information was last updated.

“VmsFault” Class¶

The “VmsFault” class shall be used to provide information of faults related to VMS. Each instance of a “VmsFault” inherits fault details from the “Fault” class, which, at a minimum, shall contain the time that the fault information was last updated.

“GraphicDataDictionary” package semantics – general¶

DD, as defined in EN ISO 14823, identifies a pictogram by using a structured code through use of subcoding split into a “service category” and a “pictogram category” code, further a “country” code, as the reference country of the pictogram category code, which is used for distinguishing nationally allocated codes which can have different meaning. GDD also allows coding of further specific information (e.g. maximum speed limit, vehicle gross weight limit, etc.) which can be addressed further as defined in EN ISO 14823.

“GddStructure” class¶

The “GddStructure” class shall be used to provide the GDD coding. This class is associated through mandatory composition to “GddPictogramDefinition”, so a GDDPictogramDefinition shall be instantiated to address a pictogram GDD reference, and optional “GddPictogramAttributes” class can be instantiated to provide binary encoded GDD attributes when needed.

“GddPictogramIdentification” class¶

The “GddPictogramIdentification” class shall be used to encode the structured GDD code information provided by country, service and pictogram category as defined in EN ISO 14823.

“GddPictogramAttributes” class¶

The “GddPictogramAttributes” class may provide optional GDD attributes associated to the graphical sign by the “attributes” attribute as defined in EN ISO 14823. This attribute list information is defined as binary encoded list where the encoding shall follow unaligned packed encoding rules (UPER) [ISO/IEC 8825-2:2015]