In the scope of our recent launch of our new website at www.heusch-boesefeldt.de we have also had the opportunity to further improve our euregional traffic information service EuregioTraffic. This service provides real-time information on the current traffic situation in the Germany-The Netherlands-Belgium border triangle as a GoogleTM Maps mash-up. The underlying dynamic data is provided by Traffic Information Centres from the three countries via Internet; and it is processed for display on the digital map as a GeoRSS feed. Textual messages for the traffic events can be provided in either English or German due to the use of the language independent DATEX data dictionary. The new release of EuregioTraffic has an integrated RSS reader that also displays textual messages and icons as lists on the left part of the screen, sorted by motorway. The service allows free navigability between the RSS reader and the digital map by simply clicking on the message of interest. It is worth noting that for messages from The Netherlands and the Federal State of North-Rhine Westphalia in Germany, traffic information is not only depicted as appropriate icons, but also by colouring the affected road section. This could be implemented by making use of the so called Geo-Extensions of the RDS location tables used, which - in the case of Northrhine-Wetphalia - we have produced ourself out of the CentroMap provided by the Ministry for Building and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
