Sixth Meeting, Apr. 30, 1999

the conference/lecture room on the first floor

1. Welcome

Rob McHugh introduced himself and asked individuals their experience with MS Access; also their interest in transit systems beyond the vehicle. Introductions continued around the table with those questions in mind. A list of attendees is attached (Attachment 1).

Thanks to our gracious hosts Gene Sansone and Lorraine Brillante, Kenny and Debby for a great job with meeting arrangements, including arranging for refreshments, for meeting rooms and equipment, and for arranging a tour of the new NYCT simulator.

The support and familiarity with Microsoft Access was adequate to continue to use it as the database program ( Office 97 or its predecessors ). Rob McHugh agreed to distribute the latest On-board database form to facilitate the entry of working groups’ data elements. Only data to and from the vehicle is a candidate for TCIP conversion. WG9 need only consider the non-SAE 1587 onboard variables of which there are about 64. It also needs to consider the non-Onboard TCIP variables which are relevant (Primarily the Common Data Elements and the Spatial Representation, but possibly also some business areas such as Passenger Information, Fare Collection etc.)

Wording for the scope and purpose was reviewed. The data dictionary will follow the guidelines of IEEE standard 1489; a pre-ballot copy is available on request. ROSIN will be used for the WG9 message sets. An attempt will be made to coordinate with LONMARK and TCN to have as much commonality as possible. The LonMark Interoperability Association will provide much of the support required for immediate applications; WG9 will build on this. The consensus of the group was that LonWorks is advanced enough to be self-supporting.

The website: http://www.tsd.org is maintained by Tom Sullivan. Tom's site is directly linked to the IEEE site where draft standards are password protected. The user name and password for accessing draft standards are "transit" and "railway". Posted Email attachments may be in either Word 6.0/95 or Word 97.

Tom McGean updated the group on standards activities. The chair presented a block diagram showing how our work was related to numerous other transit standards activities, and also a sheet explaining the acronyms used on the chart.

The chart is preliminary and help is needed to properly relate all activities and identify those that may have been missed. Persons are asked to email the chair at t.j.mcgean@ieee.org with corrections or additions so we can improve the chart.

 7.0 Data Object Modeling

The LonMark Interoperability Association has formed a new transportation group. Tom Sullivan serves as the interim chair. One of the group's tasks will be to help make the IEEE1473 L protocol standard a reality. The group met in New York on April 28^th. Subsequent meetings are planned October 13-15 in Amsterdam. Contact Tom Sullivan at tjs@pacbell.net for details. The LonMark website is www.lonmark.org.

Alex Chervet of Echelon gave an excellent example of how to profile a data element so that it would be reusable between business entities. WG9 needs to consider how to use as many Common Public Transit Database data objects as possible. The LonMark Interoperability Association will provide much of the support required for immediate applications; WG9 will build on this.

Rob will contact King County Metro to arrange a venue and finalize a date; exact date and location will be posted on http://www.tsd.org/

Attachment 1:Participants List

the conference/lecture room on the first floor

Introductions, Meeting Purpose