Objectives

The partners of the PSF standardisation initiative have agreed on a set of requirements which the PSF (Physical Storage Format) standard shall meet. Based on these requirements, the following objectives have been defined:

Compatibility and interoperability

Compatibility and interoperability allowing the exchange of map data between PSF compliant systems is the key objective of the new format.

Separation of application software and map data

In today's navigation systems the application software and the map data are combined. A separation of the two will create flexibility between PSF compliant systems.

Updates

At present, a variety of different update media and several update mechanisms are available for several in-car systems or mobile clients. Within the PSF Initiative, a solution will be developed which on one side allows for a harmonised format for different systems, and on the other side provides flexibility regarding map composing and map update.

Further objectives

Beside the objectives mentioned above, the following objectives are set for the PSF format:

  • World-wide use
  • Format compactness and efficiency
  • Support of different distribution and work media
  • Flexibility in terms of extension and inclusion of proprietary data
  • Prevention of illegal copying
traffic