Integrated Information

Transcription

1 Integrated Information Index Purpose Description Relevance for Large Scale Events Options Technologies Impacts Integration potential Implementation Best Cases and Examples 1 of 7

2 Purpose Currently, a journey long or short can involve various transport modes, particularly if a journey is aimed at minimizing environmental impacts, i.e. reducing use of cars. The ideal situation would be that for a given journey, the traveler receives an integrated itinerary which is the optimal plan based on up-to-date information from all relevant transport modes such as time table, frequency, comfort level and cost, etc. During his/her journey, any relevant disruptions, such as weather associated delay, road congestion, road closure, cancellation of a flight etc., will be gathered and corresponding impacts will be accessed. If such disruption would potentially affect the original journey plan, the traveler will be given a new journey plan with corresponding ticket booking. The traveler has the best possible information in order to adapt his/her journey. Description Today many transport modes develop their own information and ticket booking services (web-based as well as mobile device-based). These systems have been widely used by travelers for pre-trip planning and booking. With recent fast development of wireless communication and smart phones, these systems can also be accessed by travelers during their journey to obtain real-time information and carry out last minute booking using mobile devices. However, there is still lack of any integrated platform to assemble all the existing information from different modes and these use the information to provide one-stop solution for planning, booking and supporting intermodal journeys. A traveler, particularly those who travel long distance and have to use many different transport modes, has to plan and book a single journey using several services and chose the connections manually. Although there are obvious benefits from such integrated platform to assemble all the existing information and booking services, it is envisaged that today few transport operators and information service providers are willing to share their data and their systems. Relevance for Large Scale Events It is essential to provide integrated information to travelers who come to participate in a large scale event. Travelers may be familiar with neither the local transport network or traveler information services. Travelers may intent to use global information providers such as Google or Nokia. However, as described above, such global information providers may not be able access to real-time information and their journey planning may be based on static and historical information only. A large scale event may often have disruptions to local transport networks, such as road closure, special lanes, different public transport routes and timetables, new public transport services etc. If the private information providers are unable to access such information, their journey planning may not have the same quality as it should have under a normal circumstance, i.e. without large scale events. Therefore, it is essential to for the host city/region and event organizer to launch and operate integrated information services which have access to event information and up-to-date traffic and transport information. 2 of 7

3 Options There are some examples that integrate information from various modes operated by different operators in a city or a region. Often such integrated services are funded by government bodies rather than private providers. One of an early pioneer is Transport Direct ( which is able to provide door-todoor journey planning, and journey planning using different transport modes. Travel time, costs, CO2 emission for using different transport modes are given for comparison. It has been expected to have potential to influence modal shift. Another example is Bayern Info ( which is able to provide door-to-door journey planning using all transport modes in Bavarian state including public transport (bus and metro), regional train and car. Such government driven or operated integrated travel information services often collect real-time information from local transport operators to ensure up-to-date information for travelers. Congestion, road closure and engineering work, public transport delay and cancellation are taken into calculation of journey planning. There are also two main global private providers that cover many cities and regions worldwide: Nokia Maps and Google Map. Both providers can provide journey plans for most cities and regions in the world. Transport modes chose can be car, public transport, cycling and walking. However, in general they cannot provide journey planning for a longer trip, e.g. from one city to another city. However, the global providers may not be able to access real-time information from road operators and public transport operators. Therefore, they may not be able to deliver journey planning based on real-time information. A number of research projects, e.g. WISETRIP funded by the EC under the FP7 programme ( aim at providing multi-modal journey planning for longer trips, i.e. from one country to another country. However, no promising result has been delivered from such projects. Technologies Platform An integrated platform is essential for operate integrate travel information. The platform should be able to collect and integrate information from various data sources. Such a platform should have a number of interfaces to access data with different formats and convert them into data formats used by the platform. A platform should also be able to integrate new type of data when they are available and provide new services whenever needed. Since data from various sources have different quality, the platform should have a mechanism to verify quality of different information. Standards Data format is a key challenge for integrated information services. An integrated information service needs to integrated data from various operators that may have different data formats. For example, an integrated 3 of 7

4 information service may collect information from various bus operators including static information, e.g. bus routes, location of stops, timetables, and dynamic (or real-time) information, e.g. real-time arrival/departure times, location of individual vehicles, delays, etc. Currently, a widely used standard for public transport data is SIRI (Service Interface for Real-time Information). SIRI can be used for many different purposes, for example: To provide real time-departure from stop information for display on stops, internet and mobile delivery systems; - To provide real-time progress information about individual vehicles; - To manage the movement of buses roaming between areas covered by different servers; - To manage the synchronization of guaranteed connections between fetcher and feeder services; - To exchange planned and real-time timetable updates; - To distribute status messages about the operation of the services; - To provide performance information to operational history and other management systems. Integrated travel information also need to collect information on current road network information from various information providers, such as police, private information providers, road operators etc. TPEG (Transport Protocol Expert Group) may be used to display traffic incident on a map graphic. It can also be used to exchange parking information and location referencing method. Impacts Benefits of integrated travel information are: - To improve overall experience of multi-modal journeys - To save travelers time and costs - To raise awareness of different transport modes, interchange options, thus encouraging modal shift Integration potential Integration potential includes: - Integration with ticketing for various transport modes, e.g. train ticket, public transport ticket - Integration with event ticket, particularly for large events - Integration with location-based services - Integration with Smartphone applications Implementation The following figure shows an implementation process of an integrated travel information services. 4 of 7

5 Figure 1 Process of implementation of an integrated travel system Implementation should first consider coverage, e.g. a city, a region, what kind of transport modes to be covered. Then the service providers should negotiate with various transport operators, such as public transport operators, road operator, in order to have agreements to access their data (both static and dynamic data). A platform will be selected to be the core element of the service to integrate and process data. The platform should be supported by a GIS system. Data formats and standards should be selected and interfaces should be developed. When all data sources are secured, the service needs to select what kind of dissemination channels for various user groups. The dissemination channels will link with a business model to support operation of the system. Relevant Tools TPEG Applications TPEG is a modular toolkit, standardised through CEN and ISO and consisting of the following applications: RTM - Road Traffic Message PTI - Public Transport Information Loc - Location referencing, used in conjunction with applications Under development are also: PKI - Parking Information CTT - Congestion and Travel-Time TEC - Traffic Event Compact 5 of 7

6 WEA - Weather information for travellers RTM is an application that deals, as the name says with traffic information. It is a full application that can encode a wide range of road traffic information, from accidents, obstructions to congestion and delays. This application is currently specified in ISO TS PTI is the natural counterpart to RTM, dealing with public transport from rail, bus to air traffic and ferry services. This application is currently specified in ISO TS PKI is an application that will allow information about parking facilities to be transmitted. This application is currently at ISO TS Draft for Comments stage. CTT is an application focused on providing information to drivers on congestion levels and journey times. This application is currently in the late design phase. TEC is a compact application for traffic event information, aimed primarily at dynamic route guidance navigation devices. This application is currently in the early design phase TPEG Location Reference TPEG's main renown comes from its native Location Referencing approach, TPEG-Loc. Based to some degree on the ILOC approach, tpeg-locml or TPEG-Loc for the binary service, has been further developed and has added a large amount of sophistication to its ability to describe locations within networks. It principally is used by tpegml and TPEG applications, but has also been adopted by OTAP and DATEX. Platform There are some commercial platforms in market, e.g. PTV Groups s PTV mobility platform. PTV mobility platform has been used for the byerninfo.de. Other platform providers include SwarcoMizar and IBM. Examples case studies describing use of the tool: a) in previous large scale events There is no good example of integrated travel information specifically for previous large scale events. a) Bayern info ( ) Bayern info is an integrated travel information service. The service integrates all types of public transport in the region such as metro, bus, tram, regional train, etc. It can provide journey plans for cars, public transport, P+R, cycling and walking. It is able to provide multi-modal journey planning using a number of different transport modes. It is a public service and funded by the Bayern State. 6 of 7

7 Figure 2 Bayern info 7 of 7