The European digital road map triggered by car information systems

The paper focuses on the development of GDF as a standard for digital road maps. GDF is a geographical data format in which the data are defined in three different levels: level O contains the geometry and the topology of the information; level 1 defines real world objects; and on level 2, functionally related level 1 features are grouped into higher order objects. The creation of the European digital road map, which was made possible by the standard and on the expected growth of mass market applications such as car information systems, is also discussed.