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Ken Vaughn edited this page Dec 2, 2025 · 9 revisions

Guidance Specific to ISO TC 204

Introduction

This document provides guidance to the editors of ISO/TC 204 standards by capturing relevant rules and guidelines in a single location. This document may also be of interest to others within the intelligent transport systems (ITS) industry, such as other standards developers and those interested in learning more about ITS standards.

Specifically, this document intends to improve ISO/TC 204 documents by promoting the use of common:

  • terminology and relationships among terms;
  • documentation that describes the context of standards (e.g., what problem does it solve);
  • documentation of details (e.g., rules for presentation of ASN.1); and
  • design elements (e.g., encouraging adoption of a common logical data model)

This document attempts to balance competing demands to allow experts to satisfy pressing business needs while also defining processes that will assist in preventing conflicting specifications.

Because this document is primarily intended for ISO/TC 204 editors and other select ITS experts, it is published as an informal wiki page rather than as a full ISO standard. Nonetheless, the wording in the document and the layout is similar to an international standard.

Normative references

The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.

ISO/IEC Directives Part 1 Procedures for the technical work and Consolidated ISO supplement

ISO/IEC Directives Part 2 Principles and rules for the structure and drafting of ISO and IEC documents

ISO House Style ISO House Style

ISO/IEC 5087-3 Information technology — City data model — Part 3: Service level concepts -Transportation planning

ISO 5345 Registry Registry of Intelligent Transport System Items (RITSI)

ISO 14812 Intelligent transport systems — Vocabulary

ISO 14813-1 Intelligent transport systems — Reference model architecture(s) for the ITS sector — Part 1: ITS service domains, service groups and services

ISO 14813-5 Intelligent transport systems — Reference model architecture(s) for the ITS sector — Part 5: Requirements for architecture description in ITS standards

ISO 14813-6 Intelligent transport systems — Reference model architecture(s) for the ITS sector — Part 6: Use of ASN.1

ISO 14817-1 Intelligent transport systems — ITS central data dictionaries — Part 1: Requirements for ITS data definitions

ISO 21217 Intelligent transport systems — Station and communication architecture

ARC-IT Architecture Reference for Cooperative and Intelligent Transportation, located at https://arc-it.net

FRAME European Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Framework Architecture, located at https://frame-online.eu

Terms and definitions

For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO/IEC 24765 and ISO 14812 apply.

General

Assumptions

This document assumes that the editor is familiar with:

  • ITS
  • The general rules for writing a requirement statement
  • The need to follow a systems engineering process when developing requirements for systems
  • The normative references to this document.

Coordination with other organizations

Editor's should be aware that there are several standards development organizations (SDOs) involved in standardizing ITS. In some cases, the ISO standards are developed jointly with one or more other SDOs, while in other cases multiple SDOs might work on complementary standards. Complementary standards might be defined in a modular fashion (e.g., an ISO standard defining upper communication layers with lower layers defined by other SDOs) or in a sequential level of detail (e.g., ISO defines globally applicable requirements while regional and national SDOs define more detailed requirements for a particular geographic area. It is important that editors are aware of related activities and coordinate with any appropriate bodies. Some (but certainly not all) of the other SDOs with which ISO TC 204 needs to coordinate include:

  • CEN TC 278
  • SAE (especially the V2X Communications Steering Committee)
  • IEEE (especially their Registration Authority)

Parts of an ISO document

Scope and its implications

Every ISO document should address a real-world need and clearly explains its goal. The scope statement should explain how the reader will be able to derive value from the document. This information is posted online and is the main information that a reader sees when deciding whether to purchase the document. As such, this text should concisely explain the purpose of the document to the extent that it will allow a prospective reader to determine if the document is worth purchasing.

Document outline

The ISO Directives Part 2 define the ISO requirements for each ISO document. Within ISO/TC 204, it is recommended that the content of international standards and technical specifications also follow a systems engineering process (i.e., provide clearly defined user needs with traceability to the requirements and design elements that satisfy those user needs).

Identifying your ITS service(s)

Every ITS standards that addresses an ITS service should clearly identify the service and from where it is derived. In most cases, the ITS service(s) covered by an ISO document should reference one or more of the following resources:

  • ISO 14813-1
  • ARC-IT
  • FRAME

Following approved terminology

In order to minimize confusion, all ISO documents should be based on a common set of defined terms, as provided in ISO/IEC 24765 and ISO 14812.

Consistently using these definitions reinforce their meaning to users while also minimizing confusion among readers. It also enables the production of consistent ontologies and data models to minimize interoperability among computer applications. Any concerns about the terms contained in ISO 14812 should be brought to the attention of ISO/TC 204 WG 1. Standards may define their own terms to extend this base vocabulary, but if the terms are intended for general usage throughout ITS, they should be submitted for inclusion into ISO 14812.

Defining your use case

It is important to define the user needs addressed by a document and the importance of explaining the purpose of this material to the reader. User needs can be derived from an appropriate combination of the following tools:

Documenting the use case provides important context to the document in a format that can easily be parsed and understood by readers.

Documenting the reference architecture

Interface standards should provide a reference architecture diagram explaining how the subject standard relates to other standards. For example, if you are defining an application entity standard, the diagram and text should indicate how it might relate to potential facility layer standards, security standards, etc. per the ITS station reference architecture as defined in ISO 21217.

The reference architecture should include the following, as defined in ISO 14813-5, as appropriate:

  • Enterprise view
  • Functional view
  • Physical view
  • Communications view
  • Trustworthiness view

Linking to major reference architectures

When possible, ISO documents can provide links to other major reference architectures (e.g., ARC-IT, FRAME)

Data definitions

Importance of data sharing and reuse

Understanding levels of data modelling and traceability

Coordination of TC 204 data models

Coordination with outside groups

Documentation

Requirement for ASN.1

ASN.1 formats

Other formats

Other resources

ISO has prepared a variety of documents related to drafting standards.

Our colleagues in TC211 have developed a Good Practices for Standards Development to give accessible and relevant guidance on how to take part in developing standards in ISO/TC 211. But it seems like a great start for TC204 editors!

Clone this wiki locally