My TRAvel Companion

Project Information

My-TRAC

Grant agreement ID: 777640

DOI

10.3030/777640

Project closed

EC signature date 26 August 2017

Start date 1 September 2017

End date 31 December 2020

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 3 494 476,25

EU contribution

€ 3 494 476,25

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - My-TRAC (My TRAvel Companion)

Reporting period: 2019-03-01 to 2020-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Passenger transport has increased significantly in the last decades and mobility needs of citizens are rapidly changing. Moreover, longer distances are being covered per passenger, as km per passenger, which has increased by 11% along 2000-2014 in EU-33. The current transport system situation is worrying in terms of economic and environmental sustainability and has triggered a global awareness and willingness to undertake a holistic change. Also, the EU aims at reducing world greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95% below 1990 levels by 2050 to mitigate climate change. Hence, most of the medium-distance inter-city passengers travelling by rail by 2050 is required. Moreover, in the rail transport industry, passengers demand a higher quality of the service and while there more attention is being paid to cost efficiency and subsidies allocation. My-TRAC will make significant contributions in developing a more efficient and greener PT system by fostering the uptake of a decarbonised mode of transport such as rail and increasing interoperability among multimodal transport. My-TRAC will develop user-centric services that will enhance passenger multimodal door-to-door experience.

My-TRAC will foster the creation of new jobs and opportunities for the tourist industry by increasing accessibility (i.e. people with reduced mobility-PRMs-, people with low vision) Mobility-as-a-Service companies by creating an integration hub and connection with 3rd parties’ services, etc. As for ageing population, My-TRAC will promote the improvement of accessibility, enhancing adaptation and personalization of both the application itself and the transport services, by providing suggestions and recommendations on trip planning with the aim of aiding social inclusion and achieving a more fair and egalitarian EU public transport services, based on the principal that one size does not fit all.

The main goal of My-TRAC is to develop a novel transport services platform for the rail sector, designed for public and private transport users and operators to provide an improved passenger experience by developing and applying advanced behavioral and transport analytics and Artificial Intelligence algorithms to meaningful data gathered from diverse PT and Open Data sources. It is divided in the following 6 specific objectives:
1: Development of a transversal user centric platform, which will provide an operator web-based interface and a passenger Travel Companion (TC) app..
2: My-TRAC TC gives access to a set of advanced user-centred transport service such as Shopping, Ticketing, and Business Analytics functional modules developed in complementary projects of Shft2Rail, and the Trip Tracking and Social Market functional modules developed in the project.
3: My-TRAC Trip Tracking service helps and guides the user through the complete trip while allowing the passenger to control and manage it in real time, anticipating potential events or disruptions and offering the user diverse re-planning options according to their situation, accessibility conditions, and preferences.
4: My-TRAC Social Market service supports enhanced interactions between passengers and a set of service providers during the trip (e.g. offering tailored discounts etc.).
5: My-TRAC’s smart Human Machine Interface (HMI) aims to provide users a viable access to the information, depending on their individual needs, specifically addressing impairments of stable or transitory nature (e.g. visual impairment).
6: My-TRAC operators portal platform will be created as a separate web-based interface for operators

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The key work performed over the period has been as follows:
• Collaborate with EC projects and initiatives (i.e. SESAR and EIT UM) to foster knowledge sharing and share insights and good practices (D1.5).
• Design, generate and implement a modeling framework that will be predict user choices (i.e. activities, mode, time of departure and route) and provide personalized recommendations based on travelers’ behavioral characteristics (D2.2 D2.3 D2.5).
• Construction and training of a machine learning model for prediction of delays and crowdedness. Deliverable and test it in My-TRAC’s pilots (D3.2 D3.4).
• Design of the User Interface for My-TRAC application. The basic interface with the functions described in deliverable D5.1 has been designed based on the main UI design principals namely, the Persuasive, Inclusive and Affective and extend it by introducing UI/UX personalization skins. (D4.2)
•Description and implementation of the software architecture of My-TRAC project to allow for scalability in a growing environment, providing the basis for technology exploitation in additional environments. Development and implementation of stand-alone components such as the social market and the operators’ portal to complement My-TRAC app. Utilize 3rd parties’ services provided by the Shift2Rail CFM’s ecosystem to enhance door to door seamless transport (D5.3 D5.4).
• Development of an interface dedicated to the transport operators (D5.5).
•Development of My-TRAC app for individual and extending it to serve groups of travelers. (D5.4)
• Preparation and execution of My-TRAC pilots in four pilots’ sites namely Barcelona, Athens, Lisbon and the Netherlands and preparation and execution of virtual experiments to gather data to validate and to assess My-TRAC’s models and application. (D6.1 D6.2 D6.3)
• Preparation and presentation of scientific papers and publication to disseminate the results of the project. (D7.4)
• Preparation of a solid exploitation strategy based on the technological developments and an extensive market analysis (D7.9).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

My-TRAC will be a smartphone appl with back-end capabilities by setting up a module for behavioral analytics to create a conclusion on the best trip recommendation for each user based on their attributes and affective variables. It also offers the capability to display the information from 3rd parties such as from TSPs Thus, My-TRAC app is closely resembling a human companion. The My-TRAC TC combines trip planning and management interfaces, APIs for connecting to services and databases and communication technologies similar to commercial apps.

The expected results will be as follows:
• An interoperable platform supporting operator application and user Travel Companion (TC), that will connect with external services such as trip planning booking, ticketing and analytics modules.
• A TC that will behave like a real trip companion understanding user needs and anticipating and suggesting activities, routes, modes and services.
• A Social Market service that will enhance user experience by extending the value of a single ticket by providing added value services adapted to their profile.
• An advanced HMI that will adapt to user profile, preferences and accessibility needs in real time
• An operator's interface managing real-time and historic passenger data useful to improve and adapt services to travelers’ needs
• A methodology for performing pilots and assessing different models and components by overpassing technological, regulatory and external barriers.

My-TRAC final event