ISO 24099:2011 defines the data structures and protocol(s) used in intelligent transport system (ITS) applications for the delivery and update of map-related data from Service Centre (SC) to users [(In-vehicle Systems (IVS)].

ISO 24099:2011 also specifies the message generation protocols in the Service Centre and the message receiving protocols in the In‑vehicle Systems.

The map centre specified in ISO 24099:2011 represents the supplier of map data and the Service Centre provides data and services to user devices.

The term protocol as used in ISO 24099:2011 is a temporal sequence of map-related data interactions between system components that implement map-related data delivery and update. The delivery and update of map-related data rely on existing communication technology. The protocols associated with communication technology, and the other application control protocols and non-map-related data, for example images to display independent of the map database such as HTML images, are outside the scope of ISO 24099:2011.

Definitions of security mechanisms and business transaction mechanisms are also outside the scope of ISO 24099:2011.