Much recent research in the database community focuses on ways toexpand the modelling capabilities of database management systems. Thedriving force behind this research is the growing size and sophisticationof the user community, whose needs and applications seem to always beseveral steps ahead of the technology. One of the areas where considerableprogress has been made in this regard is in the extension of existing datamodels to represent and manage the temporal dimension of data. In thispaper we examine how these enhanced modelling capabilities will increasethe functionality of the database management systems of tomorrow. Wealso introduce the notion of Temporal Representation Transparency as theappropriate abstraction mechanism for providing this increased functionalitywith minimum burden to the user