News from the ACTIF model

 

5th September 2007 - ACTIF V5.0: a new release of the model, more complete and independent from technical solutions, transport modes, structures, and private or public services.
Thanks to numerous applications of ACTIF on concrete projects and into very various functional areas, important improvements have been brought to the ACTIF model: it is now closer to professional logics, more independant from technical solutions, more easily usable within every transport modes.
Firstly, the perimeter of each functional areas has been redefined to take into account the different transport modes:
-         The multimodal transportation management - which was a little part of the functional area 3 “manage traffic”- is now completely integrated in the functional area 6. Now, this functional area not only deals with the production and dissemination of travel information – “inform on travel”- but also concerns the implementation of transportation management strategy. Today, its name is: “manage, and inform on, multimodal transportation”;
-         Consequently, the functional area 3 is now called: “manage the transport infrastructures and their traffic”: it is more in concordance with the activities actually described and – better - allows the use of ACTIF in the case of waterways, railways... ;
-         The functional area 8 has been enlarged. It takes into account the management of hub bay, multimodal platform and warehouses (arrival and departure of transport means, monitoring of the goods, during their carriage or their storage,...) and the use of reserved transport infrastructures like sea motorways, trucks-on-train...;
-         The descriptions proposed for the functions, datastores or dataflows are better related to other domains than road traffic management. Some examples are given in aim to show the possible use and application of the ACTIF model objects in differents cases or transport modes.
Secondly, the modelling rules defined during the version V4 have been more detailed and more continuously applied. For example:
-         The functional area 1 – provide electronic payment – includes 8 different sub-areas more directly linked with the professions and the data they handle with;
-         The functional area 5 – provide advanced driving assistance – integrates the evolution of the European ITS Framework Architecture FRAME and the application on project like e-call;
-         The functional areas 2 and 7 follow the same kind of decomposition, according to the different level: strategy (policy definition or assessment), non-qualified data management (call or anomalie treatment), action (emergency or infringement management);
-         Using the same way, the functional area 3 and 6 now includes the definition and assessment of the strategy implemented on field. 
11th October 2004  ACTIF V4.0:
Substantial modifications have been made, based on work carried out in collaboration with professionals of the various sectors concerned, on the one hand in order to integrate the latest developments in the field of transport and on the other hand to improve the model’s legibility.
The main objectives were to:
- take into account the improvements brought to the different roles within the functional areas,
- guarantee the model’s consistency and comprehensiveness,
- improve diagram legibility,
- highlight aspects relating to interoperability.

These last two points have notably been taken into consideration through the introduction of a “generic architecture” in all diagrams, adopting a breakdown of area activities into a traditional Information Collection / Storage / Processing / Dissemination diagram and through the improvement of Functional Area 9, renamed as "Manage Shared Data", so as to facilitate understanding.

Due to the scale of the work, this new version focuses on enhancing the functional aspects of the model and upgrading diagrams. As a follow-up to this work, additional actions are planned in 2005 and will further improve the model:


- correlation of standards with model objects,
- introduction of reflexive data flows.
27th february 2004  : delivery of the release 3.0 of the ACTIF model!
Simplification of the model , better consistency of the repository, higher readability are the key words of the release 3.0 of the ACTIF model.
In addition, this release integrates the results of two studies which have been carried out during the year 2003,  regarding:
·         ACTIF user needs adaptation
·         ACTIF model evolution
From a technical point of view, this release stems from the migration process of the 2.5 release of the ACTIF model into the release 6.0 of the MEGA tools , which offer new functional features making easier the management of the model as well as a new graphic and more ergonomic formalism.