1. ITRD Update / GTRIC Meeting Toronto
Colin Howard
Head of TRL Library & Information Centre and Chairman of ITRD Operational Committee
5th June 2005
Thank you for this opportunity to tell you something about recent developments in ITRD.

2. International Transport Research Documentation
Background & content
How it works
Accessing the database
I will give you a brief insight into what TRL does and the role of the Library & Information Centre – and sandwiched in between I’ll talk a little about how ITRD works.

3. International Transport Research Documentation ITRD
Co-operative World-wide database of published Information on Transport and Transport Research
Permanent activity of the joint OECD/ECMT Transport Research Centre
Created in 1972
430,000 bibliographical references on Transport Research literature and on-going research

4. ITRD-- How does it work?
Since 2003, administered by TRL (UK) on behalf of the OECD
27 members from respected research organisations in 19 countries world-wide provide abstracts each month
In one of 4 working languages through the appropriate Co-ordinating Centre
English : TRL
German : BASt
Spanish : CEDEX
French: INRETS
Majority of input (70%) is in English

5. ITRD Members
Australia (ARRB)
Austria (KfV)
Belgium (ISBR, CRR)
Brazil (IPR)
Canada (TAC/ACT)
China (Min. of Comm.)
Czech Republic (CDV)
Denmark (Danish Rd Inst.)
Finland (Finnra)
France: (LCPC, INRETS, SETRA)
Germany (BASt, FGSV)
Hungary (KTI)
Japan (NILIM, CERI)
Mexico (IMT)
Netherlands (SVOW)
Norway (Public Rd Adm.)
Saudi Arabia (Min. of Comm.)
Spain (CEDEX)
Sweden (VTI)
Switzerland (EPFL)
UK (TRL)
USA (TRB)
Details of all of these organisations can be found and linked to from the ITRD website

6. ITRD: Subject Coverage
Accident studies
Construction of pavements, bridges, and tunnels
Design of roads and related structures
Drainage of soils
Earthworks
Environment
Highway financing and administration
Materials & Maintenance
Road Safety, accidents
Soils and rock mechanics
Traffic & Transport
Vehicles
From various sources:
Journals (>500 journals covered) Series Books Conference contributions Company publications
Dissertations Patents Reports Standards and Specifications Non-conventional literature

7. Monthly input from Members
Member organisations scan and abstract publications choosing language of input
Language
Coordinating
Centres
French
(INRETS)
English
(TRL)
German
(BASt)
Spanish
(Cedex)
Monthly quadrilingual ITRD file
Each member should scan and abstract publications originating in their own organisation and country. They can choose which of the 4 languages to input in and submit it monthly to the appropriate Co-ordinating Centre.
TRL then merges each of the 4 files and forwards the quadrilingual file to the ITRD website from where members can download it for in-house databases. Copies are also sent to the online hosts STN & Ovid
File distributed back to members
+ On-line host (STN)
+ Transport Database CD-ROM/On-line (Ovid)

8. ITRD input in 4 languages
As you might expect >75% is English, though significant portion in German (many of which also have English abstracts)

9. Quadrilingual thesaurus links terms through numeric code
Each term has an equivalent term in the other 3 languages linked by a numeric code......
American English – fifth language!

10. ITRD Thesaurus

11.
The ITRD website provides a lot more detail about subject coverage, how it works, who the members are and how to access the database.

12. Accessing the database
There are links from the Access page to both STN and Ovid

13. STN on the web
STN provides a choice of interface – the classical on-line “on the web” in which experienced on-line searchers can indulge themselves with all the usual Boolean trickery. It is a very sophisticated search engine which allows you to expand around terms – particularly useful in ITRD to see the associated controlled terms in other languages (or even the occasional typing errors).
The process shown here starts with a free text search and shows how the controlled terms can be identified. In STN the controlled terms (ITRD keywords) have the English version added automatically.

14. STN on the web You can see the list of titles retrieved here.
STN is a pay as you go system apart from small upfront costs of EUR32.- for opening an STN account (one-time fee per loginid) and an annual fee of EUR32.- per loginid.
Then the cost for the first 2 searches (marked L1 and L2) including selecting CTs and displaying the 26 titles the cost is about EUR2.20. Any additional full displayed record would cost (incl. connect time) about EUR2.15 per record.

15. STN on the web
Here you can see the full record displayed and if you wish can see the controlled terms.

16. STN on the web
The Expand command here allows you to see the various different terms that share the same term code.

17. STN on the web
This search is looking for the effects of traffic calming on safety and is concentrating on anything published between

18. STN on the web
This records originated in from the Swedish centre VTI and you can see the original is available from either VTI or TRL.

19. STNEasy
The other more modern looking interface is STN Easy – easier for the non-information professional and also cheaper!
The search costs EUR2.- and the full record display EUR2.75. No connect time fee or other fees. Opening an STN Easy only account is free, the annual fee is EUR32.

20. STNEasy

21. STNEasy

22. Ovid “TRANSPORT” search
The other publicly available platform for ITRD is as part of the Transport database – together with TRIS.
Transport is available either on CD-ROM or online via the Ovid website.
In either case by an upfront annual subscription.
The cost can vary depending whether you are a developing country or how much of the database you want to subscribe to, but typically from about 1000$ pa.
Here a similar search to the STN one showing how you can find the CTs and codes thus expanding to include all languages.

23. Ovid TRANSPORT search

24. Ovid TRANSPORT search

25. Ovid TRANSPORT search

26. Ovid TRANSPORT search

27. Future developments Full Text links
Looking at further new platforms – jointly with TRIS
Eg DIALOG, Engineering Village 2

28. ITRD Update / GTRIC Meeting Toronto
Colin Howard
Head of TRL Library & Information Centre and Chairman of ITRD Operational Committee
5th June 2005
Thank you for your attention ....Questions??