FAQ

When a new publication is to be created, it is possible to upload certain files to the MDM. For example, a file can be uploaded to determine the geographical area of a publication; the same applies to reference files or data licenses.

In order to be able to make use of the full functional scope of the web user interface of the MDM platform, you must have activated JavaScript and installed the Adobe Flash Player plugin on your browser. You can download the Flash Player at http://get.adobe.com/de/flashplayer/herunterladen.

The MDM also offers the opportunity to research into offered publications without registering. All other functions, e.g. the publication of your own data or the procurement of data via the MDM, are only available to registered users. Registration and the subsequent setting up of user accounts is ultimately the prerequisite for secure communication with the MDM, which is based on certificates.

During registration, a profile is created for your organisation and a first user account is set up. You will then receive an email link so that you can confirm your user account. After this, a user certificate is generated that is sent to you by email; the necessary password is sent by fax. After importing the user certificate and logging into the MDM, you can create and manage other user accounts and contacts for your organisation.

Further information about using certificates can be found in the User Manual.

The data model to be used is published by the MTS-K on its website and can be downloaded from the download area of the MDM help page:

MDM: MTS-K data model

For MTS-K publications, the data model is configured in the basic, price and complaint data publication under “File schema -> URL” as follows:

Price data publication:

bast.s3.amazonaws.com/schema/1374753374372/FuelPricePublication_v01-01-00.xsd

Basic data publication:

bast.s3.amazonaws.com/schema/1374753215879/PetrolStationPublication_v01-01-00.xsd

Complaint data:

bast.s3.amazonaws.com/schema/1374753124041/ComplaintPublication_v01-01-00.xsd

The old version 01-00-00 of the data model should no longer be used for new publications.

The connection to the MDM for MTS-K users is described in the MTS-K information about use of the MDM and about registration of basic and price data and of complaints. The interface to be implemented is set out in the technical interface description document in Chapter 4.3.1.3 Publisher Push SOAP (DATEX II).

As soon as data clients have logged on to the MDM portal, the actions required of them are displayed in their task area on the MDM portal.

Additionally, you should actively inform data clients about the planned suspension by email. To do this, click on “Email to subscribers” in the “Manage publications” view; the standard email client then opens on your PC. This creates a new email to the principal contacts of all organisations that are data clients (subscribers) of the publication.

If the MDM platform in the M2M communication functions as web client, it authenticates itself with its server certificate, provided that the web server on the data provider and data client side has activated this option. Data provider and data client systems should activate this option and verify the certificate in order to determine that the requests have actually been transmitted from the MDM platform. The CA certificates required for verification can be downloaded here and must be saved in the data provider and data client system.

If your organisation has already registered, you cannot register again. In this case, a new user account for you must be applied using an already existent user account within your organisation on the MDM portal. Where necessary, please contact the organisation team at MDM which is responsible for the registration and provision of user certificates (contact data: see MDM manual).

The recommended DATEX II profiles for a harmonised use of the MDM each have an autonomous version system and therefore also version information in the schema file. A new version is published where this is necessary due to corresponding requirements on the part of data providers or data clients.

For smooth operation, it must be ensured that the corresponding clients on the data provider and data client side also support the currently used schema version. Data providers should give their subscribers sufficient advance information about a version upgrade to enable them to switch. When switching over, the “suspend publication” process described in the MDM User Manual should always be implemented in order to prevent malfunctions.

The documentation for every profile shows which version it belongs to. Furthermore, the differences to the previous versions, in particular those affecting the schema, are clearly set out at the start of the document. .

In the case of a schema file (*.xsd), the version cannot be seen from the file name. Instead, the version there is anchored in terms of content as follows (using the example of a road works information system):

<xs:attribute name=”extensionName” use=”optional”default=”MDM-BIS” />
<xs:attribute name=”extensionVersion” use=”optional”default=”02-00-00″ />

These two lines are directly next to each other, but not at the start of the file. As pure text files are involved, their position can be found easily using the search function, e.g. by searching for “extensionName”.

A schema instance (*.xml), i.e. the actual message, should always reference (and also validate against) the corresponding MDM schema in the header and include the corresponding version. The two XML attributes “extensionName” and “extensionVersion” are optional for historical reasons, but should always be used to prevent problems with the data client systems! The header could then look as follows:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″ ?>
<d2LogicalModel xmlns=”http://datex2.eu/schema/2/2_0″modelBaseVersion=”2″
xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”
xsi:schemaLocation=”http://datex2.eu/schema/2/2_0bast.s3.amazonaws.com/schema/1234567890123/MDM_Profile_BIS.xsd”
extensionName=”MDM-BIS” extensionVersion=”02-00-00″>

The specified schema (here: the BIS profile as link example without stored file) is hosted separately by MDM for each publication (or optionally referenced predefined schemas). The precise address is determined on creating the publication or notified as part of a subscription.

The web client must authenticate itself to the MDM using its machine certificate. The MDM presents its server certificate here in the SSL handshake, which has been signed by the MDM’s own CA. For this reason it is necessary to save the CA certificates, which can be downloaded here, in the relevant system.

When you register, you create a profile for your organisation. Your account and all other user accounts together with contacts are managed through your organisation. Your organisation receives an ID that is used for the further administration of the traffic data you have inserted or procured.

Whilst you can make changes at any time to contact information and to the internet address of your website, and add new contacts to your organisation, you are not able to change the name of the organisation. If it is necessary to change this, it is only possible in justified cases by going through the MDM help desk.

If subscriptions to the publication already exist, you will no longer be able to edit all fields. This prevents important parameters of a publication being changed without the agreement of subscribers.

In order to be able to change all settings of your publication, existing subscriptions to this publication must be suspended. As data provider of the publication, you must apply for such a suspension and this must be agreed to by all subscribers of this publication. The precise procedure is described in Chapter 2.5.2.5 of the User Manual.

All formats supported by the MDM use structured XML for machine to machine data exchange. The structure of valid XML data sets is specified by an XML schema definition that is allocated to the DATEX II namespace in the XML data set by the schemaLocation attribute. You can either select the appropriate XML schema for your publication from a list of predefined URLs, or upload the XML schema as file to the metadata directory of the MDM. In this case, the MDM makes a corresponding internet address (URL) available to you after uploading, which you can then reference in the schemaLocation attribute of your XML messages.

Data providers should always make use of the opportunity of making the schema underlying their data sets accessible in one of the described forms, as the mechanical checking of the syntactical integrity of their data would otherwise not be possible! Data providers using the DATEX II format should always reference a profile schema tailored to their publication. Only by doing so it is possible to guarantee that compliance with the selection of optional data elements underlying the publication as well as the syntactical accuracy of any DATEX extensions is taken into consideration during validation.

Details of how to create a profile schema can be found in the “DATEX II Profiling Guideline“ on the DATEX II website. Details on storing such a schema on the MDM as well as referencing in the publication can be found in Chapter 2.5.1, Point 15, of the User Manual.

If you have any questions that cannot be answered by the information on the Help page, or if you wish to register a malfunction, as registered platform user you may contact the MDM hotline.

After logging on to the MDM platform, you will be able to see and select the “Contact” menu item. You will obtain the contact data for the MDM hotline there.

This service is only available to registered users, so that you must first register on the MDM if you wish to use the hotline.

The contact details of the MDM hotline are also listed in the welcome email you receive when you register on the MDM or apply for a new user account.

Just contact me, it will be my pleasure to help you.

orga(at)mdm-portal.de

Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen
Brüderstraße 53
51427 Bergisch Gladbach
Germany
Telefon: +49 2204 43-0
www.bast.de