APTA-TCIP-S-01 3.0.3
TCIP is an APTA Standard that provides a library of information exchange building blocks, to allow transit agencies and transit suppliers to create standardized tailored interfaces. APTA TCIP is based on the earlier TCIP work performed by ITE, AASHTO, and NEMA and published as the NTCIP 1400-series standards. APTA TCIP extended the NTCIP Standards to include a Concept of Operations, Model Architecture, Dialog Definitions, and a rigorous, modular approach to conformance. Both the APTA TCIP development and the earlier NTCIP development were sponsored by the US DOT Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office.
TCIP Model Architecture
TCIP provides building blocks for interfaces for several business areas:
• Common Public Transport
• Scheduling
• Passenger Information
• Transit Signal Priority
• Control Center
• Onboard Systems
• Spatial Referencing
• Fare Collection
All business areas in the standard are approved, except for Fare Collection. Fare Collection is included on a non-normative basis pending further development after the completion of the APTA UTFS.
APTA has developed a tool to assist TCIP users in specifying TCIP interfaces called the TCIP Implementation Requirements and Capabilities Editor (TIRCE). This tool provides a user-friendly means to create, modify, document, and compare interface specifications based on TCIP.
APTA has also developed a tool set to to validate the data exchange once an interface has been implemented. Currently additional TCIP Verification tools are under development. TCIP Verification is available to provide real-time data capture, log data, and allow the user to view and compare an implementation to its specifications(PICS). TCIP Verification is not a tool for analyzing data but to check the message structure.
The TCIP Interrogator allows the user to generate a TCIP-compliant subscription request without writing custom software. Interrogator supports the "Publish/Subscription" TCIP dialog type. The Interrogator has a built in viewer to view the logged data.
The APTA TCIP Standard, TIRCE, and the TCIP Interrogator are available free of charge to all interested parties via download from the APTA TCIP project website. The site can be found at www.aptatcip.com.