PTV Optima provides real-time speed calculation for entire Czech road network

The Road and Motorway Directorate of the Czech Republic (RSD CR) operates under the Ministry of Transportation and is tasked with maintaining the nation’s highways and first-class roads. In this project, the main challenge was to obtain real-time information about the traffic situation on all roads which belong to traffic message channel (TMC) segments. Another task was to calculate near real-time turn ratios at intersections.

RSD CR chose to rely on PTV Optima, the real-time traffic management software by PTV Group. In this project, its main function was to calculate speed and turn ratios by using raw floating car data (FCDs) that is received from fleets of private companies.

PTV Optima was deployed in cooperation with traffic data provider Inrix, which collects FCDs from different sources; and with transportation solutions provider VARS, builder of the customer’s GUI, which is now fed with data calculated by PTV Optima.

This project was finalized and delivered in April 2019, as a module of the Czech National Traffic Information Center (NTIC). It is operating and maintained ever since.

PTV Optima was chosen for this project because it can process data from all sorts of providers. Data can be fed from any source - local company fleet, delivery fleet, intersection beacons, and even commercial providers like TomTom or HERE.

Another reason for choosing PTV Optima was its scalability and ability to be customized according to the customer´s requirements. Currently, the PTV Optima system processes FCDs from up to 150,000 vehicles in one-minute tact. The system can always be scaled up to process an even bigger amount of data.

The data provided by PTV Optima is now used by NTIC operators. It is a prerequisite for a real-time traffic forecasting model, which is intended to be the next extension of the NTIC.