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Pedestrian and public transport navigator

Ziel

PEPTRAN will develop software to guide a user from point to point within a city, walking and using public transport in the most efficient manner.

The software will be implemented on two platforms: a hand-held device, and an existing car navigation system. In the second case, the software will guide the car driver to the best place to park and change to public transport, on the assumption that the user wishes to avoid driving in the city centre. In either case, the system will share the duties of finding a route with a central server, with which it communicates by GSM wireless data transmission. The mobile unit will produce candidate partial routes from the map data to which it has access, and the central server will produce candidate partial routes based on public transport timetables and live information about the progress of the public transport vehicles. The mobile unit will have the responsibility for assembling the complete route and presenting the route to the user in a manner suitable for the environment in which it is operating: the exact means of presenting the route to the user will vary with the display capabilities of the hardware, from a full map for a palmtop-sized communicator, to a simple single-line text message for a smartphone.

Objectives:
To implement the systems, we will develop the route-finding software for the public transport navigation server using a standard database interface to help in attaching it to whatever tracking system a local transport company has. In addition to this, we will develop an communications interface to get the data from the server via ISDN and GSM to the mobile unit. We will have a means of integrating partial routes from the server with partial routes from the mobile device. The systems will be tested in one large (Turin), and one larger region (Hampshire). The transport data for these will be furnished by three members of the consortium. Finally, we intend to develop the protocols necessary to download local maps via the car system to the handheld system, using DAB.

Work description:
PEPTRAN will develop software to guide a user from point to point within a city, walking and using public transport in the most efficient manner. The software will be implemented on two platforms. Firstly, a hand-held device, and secondly, an existing car navigation system. In the latter case, the software will guide the car driver to the best place to park and change to public transport, on the assumption that the user wishes to avoid driving in the city centre. In either case, the system will share the duties of finding a route with a central server, with which it communicates by GSM wireless data transmission.

The mobile unit will produce candidate partial routes from the map data to which it has access, and the central server with produce candidate partial routes based on public transport timetables and live information about the progress of the public transport vehicles. The mobile unit will have the responsibility for assembling the complete route and presenting the route to the user in a manner suitable for the environment in which it is operating: the exact means of presenting the route to the user will vary with the display capabilities of the hardware, from a full map for a palmtop-sized communicator, to a simple single-line text message for a smartphone.

To implement the systems, we will develop four modules for the PEPTRAN system. Firstly, the route-finding software will use the public transport navigation server. Secondly, a standard database interface will be developed to help in attaching it to whatever tracking system a local transport company has. For the mobile unit, we will develop a communications interface to get the data from the server via ISDN and GSM and a means of integrating partial routes from the server with partial routes from the mobile device. The systems will be tested in one large city, and one larger region. The transport data for these will be furnished by two members of the consortium. Finally, we intend to develop the protocols necessary to download local maps via the car system to the handheld system, using digital audio broadcasting (DAB).

The first period of the project will gather user requirements, by means of surveys, user groups and user tracking in the two test area. This will continuously feed results to a parallel analysis and design task, shortly followed by a set of tasks dealing with the implementation of the communications software, XML data interchange formats, and the database interfaces from the transport companies' existing databases to the public transport navigation server. Software will be written to allow the public transport companies to enter data not currently present in their databases, but necessary for route-planning or presentation of the routes to the users. Over a period of about a year, the existing stand-alone routing software for the hand-held device and car will be modified to incorporate the partial routes describing the public transport section of journeys. During the later part of this period, the public transport companies will prepare to evaluate the finished software in the field, using criteria developed in the first part of the project. The evaluation will take place after the development of the main part of the software, and will include two large cohorts of end users who will be loaned the equipment to evaluate it in the field for a month each. During this testing of the software, some further auxiliary software will be developed to allow users to download local maps by DAB or GSM. Finally there will be a short phase of revision of the software to reflect the findings during evaluation.

Milestones:
The first period of the project will gather user requirements, by means of surveys, user groups and user tracking in the two test area. This will continuously feed results to a parallel analysis and design task, shortly followed by a set of tasks dealing with the implementation of the communications software, XML data interchange formats, and the database interfaces from the transport companies' existing databases to the public transport navigation server. Software will be written to allow the public transport companies to enter data not currently present in their databases, but necessary for route-planning or presentation of the routes to the users. Over a period of about a year, the existing stand-alone routing software for the hand-held device and car will be modified to incorporate the partial routes describing the public transport section of journeys. During the later part of this period, the public transport companies will prepare to evaluate the finished software in the field, using criteria developed in the first part of the project. The evaluation will take place after the development of the main part of the software, and will include two large cohorts of end users who will be loaned the equipment to evaluate it in the field for a month each. During this testing of the software, some further auxiliary software will be developed to allow users to download local maps by DAB or GSM. Finally there will be a short phase of revision of the software to reflect the findings during evaluation.

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BRITISH MARITIME TECHNOLOGY LIMITED
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ORLANDO HOUSE WALDEGRAVE ROAD 1
TW11 8LZ TEDDINGTON - MIDDLESEX
Vereinigtes Königreich

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