Application of XML Topic Maps to knowledge navigation and information retrieval for urban traffic information portal

Along with stocks of traffic information grows rapidly, knowledge navigation is the future development trend for managing urban traffic information resource. Topic Maps (TM) are standardized by ISO 13250 for the purpose of semantic annotation of WWW resources. XML Topic Maps (XTM) is straightforwardly usable over the Internet and support a wide variety of applications. This paper presents the knowledge navigation system for urban traffic information portal based on XML Topic Maps technology, including four layers: information resources layer, knowledge layer, information navigation server layer and application layer. The method of constructing topic maps from domain ontology is discussed. The knowledge layer is abstracted from large quantities of distributing heterogeneous municipal information resources by using XTM. Navigation scope is built on the knowledge level which enlarges the navigation unit granularity and quantity of receiving information, shortens the navigation routing, and improves the efficiency of navigation. Then the intelligent information retrieval through association between topics is achieved. The research is valuable in digital city and knowledge navigation.