Objective
HAGIS is developing an information service to improve security in the handling and transport of dangerous goods. At present, safe operations may be compromised by regulations in several languages for different forms of transport to meet differing national requirements. The project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a user-friendly telematics-based information service on regulations governing this activity, irrespective of EU language and the means of transport adopted. The pilot application will be built on top of a commercial document retrieval system, with support for multilingual operation and automatic terminology extraction.
Progress on the Project
A Market and User Requirements Survey was conducted in four pilot countries: France; Germany; Greece; and Spain. This confirmed the basic assumptions of the need for simplified access to multi-lingual regulatory information about Hazardous Goods.
Serious interest has been expressed by industrial companies as well as the freight forwarding, maritime and road haulage industries.
The language engineering content and techniques used to produce the HAGIS information base has attracted the interest of members of international organisations involved in the restructuring and harmonisation processes of the different codes and recommendations. For them HAGIS could prove a very useful tool.
The detailed requirements resulting from the survey have formed the basis for the specifications of the pilot service. Full design specifications and a preliminary demonstrator were complete at end 1996.
Market and User Requirements Survey
All types of potential users were contacted in the course of the survey in each of the four countries. The overall response was very positive. Some countries and some of the larger chemical firms and ports have already developed telematic services or custom-built, computerised applications but there is a strong demand from other countries, smaller companies and the transport industry for a service providing not only quick answers but also answers to more detailed enquiries on regulations. The ability to move from one language to another at any point in the consultation is seen as a considerable advantage.
Specifications
HAGIS will provide a three tier information base: full texts; facilitated consultation with immediate answer to a specific query; and specific end-user applications and extracts.
The key functionality identified is:
- electronic book functions (such as index controls, on-line aid, navigation tracking, and multiple windows),
- multi-linguism (switching from one language to another at any point and provide the identical paragraph/reference)
- library and references linking (switching from the equivalent paragraph/reference between codes and trace updates and amendments).
An Intranet architecture has now been adopted so as to permit browser consultation processing of the HAGIS bases.
The system architecture has a central database server for maintenance and update of regulations and for development, with a local database in each country (Barcelona Port Authority, Databank Athens, Hub Port Services Le Havre, & Teleport Duisburg) providing standard HAGIS services, customised services, and a first line help desk.
Restructuring and Harmonising Codes
Important work is being undertaken by regulatory bodies towards restructuring the regulations contained in each Code and at the same time, reducing the present differences in approach, to achieve a set of harmonised regulations for all modes of transport. The techniques and tools used to produce the HAGIS database, the concept linking process and the lexicons created will considerably assist in this work. Notably the ability to compare versions and translations will indicate the differences and speed up the currently laborious tasks of Committees and their translators.
This work will progress during the coming year as the HAGIS preliminary demonstrator comes on stream. Already, during the early stages of data entry and processing, a number of minor discrepancies in text and translation have been found and will be identified to the legislators.
The Way ahead
Full system design and data integration will be continued during the first half of the year and the text alignment and the 'concept linking' development work will be completed during the summer.
The final alpha prototype will be tested in Le Havre and Duisburg in the autumn prior to the HAGIS pilot being implemented also in Barcelona and Greece early in 1998. Full beta testing will then take place at all four sites.
HAGIS will have a stand at the March Salon International du Transport et de la Logistique (SITL) in Paris at which the functionality will be demonstrated on screen. Further presentations of the demonstrator are being planned for International bodies, and also Government Institutions in at least Germany and France.
HAGIS is designed to provide the EU with an information service specialised in the prevention of incidents and minimising risks relating to the movement of hazardous goods in a multicultural, multimodal context.
Applications domains are:
- Transportation, hazardous goods need to be identified by shippers with the terminology which is specified in the transport regulations,
- Harbour authorities, airport authorities, shipping agents, freight agencies, transportation companies need information to understand the nature of risks concerning the movement of hazardous goods,
- Civil security, enforcement services, and firemen need to have rapid access to information concerning hazardous goods,
- Insurance companies, national statistics institutes, justice and banks need to understand the nature of risks they are dealing with.
The project, as a pilot application, aims to demonstrate the feasibility and desirability of a user-friendly Information Service, available via telematics networks, on the regulations governing the transport of hazardous goods whatever the means of transport and in whatever language of the European Union. All international codes (IMDG, ADR, RID, ADRN, IACO), as well as probably national and local legislation and regulations will eventually be able to be integrated in HAGIS.
HAGIS is built on top of a commercial Document Retrieval System. Linguistic processes are added for multilingual text alignment, automatic terminology extraction, multilingual lexicon and the construction of conceptual hierarchical network for reducing "noise" and "silence" during query.
The pilot application provides all the necessary interfaces to build user friendly applications. Queries can be made in one language and the requirements viewed in a second language and with the possibility of producing a message or print out in a third language i.e. Hazardous Goods Declaration).
Progress and results
A market survey identifying the different groups involved in the transport of dangerous goods, and an investigation on available international/national regulation books in electronic form has been completed for all the EU countries. The pilot application is concentrating on English, French, German and Spanish languages but the design is made for all EU languages.
The project provides methods and tools for text alignment in different languages and the construction of intelligent inverted list. User interfaces are developed for PC using well documented API. The Document Retrieval System runs on a UNIX machine in client/server architecture mode and is connected to public and private networks. Data includes the following international codes: MDG (sea), ADR (road) and RID (rail).
Exploitation
A demonstrator will be built and will be deployed in several European Ports: Le HAVRE (France), BARCELONA (España) , DUISBURG (Germany) and DATABANK (Greece)
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities languages and literature general language studies
- natural sciences computer and information sciences databases
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Coordinator
76600 Le Havre
France
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