CYBERRAIL. Information Infrastructure for New Intermodal Transport Business Model. 1. Introduction

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1 CYBERRAIL Information Infrastructure for New Intermodal Transport Business Model Takahiko OGINO Chief Researcher, Railway Technical Research Institute Abstract Keywords: One of the achievements of the CyberRail concept is that it has proposed the fabric of the transport, which is so simple and strong that we cannot miss the future direction of the revolution towards an intermodal transport system. The second one is the creation of a tailor-made travel assistant model, that is, itinerary-based, situation-sensitive traveler information services. Considering the fast development of ubiquitous computing technology, functions of CyberRail will become more and more realistic. We have established a special interest group (SIG) on CyberRail in Japan. One of the purposes of the SIG is to make CyberRail architecture. We also proposed some of the service-oriented system packages, which are often referred to as market packages. In addition to the system architecture development, we have developed an experimental implementation of traveler support features of CyberRail. Using this system, passengers get train transfer guidance according to their enquiry through mobile phone. Once the passengers started travel, the system continues to give information during the travel when they arrived at particular transfer points as if the passengers have assistants with them. The paper describes structure and mechanism of CyberRail. intermodal transport, ubiquitous computing, travel assistant, tailor-made travel 1. Introduction Railway transport was/is like a cheap restaurant. You would be full if you could be patient with a same menu and nasty food. In the age when no other means are possible to provide transport with reasonable cost and safety, railways were one of the best. This characteristic could last, if your travel demands happen to be one of the services that the railway provides. We could replace railways with public transportation in the above context. The emergence of automobiles, particularly private cars, destroyed this prosperity of public transport. Once people found a way to meet their travel demands with more comfortable way, a very few people would like to use public

2 652 transport. The risk to drive a car is 1000 times bigger than to take a train, however, the people still prefer driving. Are cars future transport means? Are railways out-of-date mechanisms for transport? Are railways dying as if an endangered animal? No, definitely not! CyberRail is an information infrastructure, on which a brand new transport business model can be constructed, in order to rescue this situation. 2. SCENARIO OF CYBERRAIL Let us explain a scenario, where one of the services of CyberRail is available, and where IT is the key technology to offer railway customers a virtual assistant and/or a ubiquitous companion. A traveller explains the purpose of the journey to this virtual assistant with information including the destination, personal preference, budget, selection priorities, etc. In this example, perhaps the person would like to visit tourist resorts. The virtual assistant then accesses the records of client s travel history and personal preference for complementing the enquiry, and offers various suggestions based on preferred cost, duration and other conditions. Travel planning is often a time-consuming process. If there are several potential destinations, the assistant will evaluate the timetables, booking conditions, overcrowding, etc., to propose suitable travel itineraries. Then the traveller can make a final decision and asks the assistant to make the necessary reservations and virtually purchase the tickets. On the day that the journey starts, a virtual travelling companion, realized by ubiquitous computer technology, continually would sit beside the traveller and would access the travelling conditions on all the transport modes so that the passenger can enjoy even the most difficult trip. Furthermore, if the passenger becomes bored during the trip, the companion will give advice about entertainment, resorts, etc., or if the passenger wants to rest, the companion will not disturb them unless absolutely necessary. Other services include re-bookings for missed connection, advices on shopping, restaurants, etc., and notices for special shopping sales. If there is enough number of passengers looking for a connection, extra trains may be on service, depending upon the policy of railway operators. The service is not only for passengers - a guardian may contact the virtual assistant to locate his/her children en route. The higher level of travel safety and security will allow handicapped passengers to travel smoothly and safely, such as, elderly people, small children, and foreigners who do not speak the local language. If this type of social infrastructure can be provided at very low cost or for free, there is little doubt that many more passengers will find public transport systems more convenient to use. This type of information business model fo-

3 Cyberrail 653 cused on railways and based on the future growth of IT, offers benefits to both railway passengers and operators, and we believe that it is an essential component in achieving an efficient and mobile society. 3. INNOVATIVE IDEA OF CYBERRAIL The conventional way of railway transport consists of the following acts: for passengers to take a train, which actually runs and roughly meets their potential travel demands; for railway operators to run trains as planed and to maintain railway related equipment and facilities, no matter what will happen. One of the reasons why CyberRail is so different from an information provision and guidance system is that, extremely speaking, CyberRail aims at creation of new carrying power, depending upon the current demands from passengers, and give passengers information so as to make passengers flows optimum. This function is not only convenient for passengers, but also profitable to railway operators, because they could provide transport capacity efficiently. Communication between passengers and railway operators is an essential part of CyberRail. If information about what is going on in the real transport is on a cyberspace, we can introduce various planning methodology to solve effective transport operation control problems. This is why information processing is useful for creating effective transport plan. 4. STRUCTURE OF CYBERRAIL Conceptual model To facilitate smooth use of different public transport modes, it is necessary to know transport demands and current positions of passengers. There must be a constant communications link between tags and the objects in cyberspace, where the moving passengers carry the former and the latter represents the transport demands. Tag provides continuous updates on the passenger s status. The cyberspace that comprises CyberRail is composed of the following three basic classes: Demand Class The object of this class, which represents its holder, is a mapped one from user demands in real space. Its attributes are movement demands, current positions, profile, etc. The profile includes the preferences of the travel demands, the holder s travel history and other customer management information.

4 654 Figure1. Conceptual Model of CyberRail Tag may not be single equipment on your palm or in your pocket. It could be a combination of a season ticket and a cellular phone. A public information kiosk could become display equipment for the passengers instead of the cellular phone. We will have variety of ubiquitous equipment in the near future. The meaning of the above sentence can be easily understood by Mark Weiser s quotation, a founder of ubiquitous computing, A good tool is an invisible tool. By invisible, I mean that the tool does not intrude on your consciousness; you focus on the task, not the tool.... The blind person tapping the cane feels the street, not the cane.... From this point of view, tag must be invisible and unconscious when it is used. Also it must be always beside the passengers. Carrier class This class represents facilities, which carry passengers in an intermodal way, that is, an abstraction of automobiles, trains and planes. Its attributes include current position, status of passengers on carriers, status and condition of vehicles, maintenance data, etc. Looking at this model, it is possible to view the current road-based ITS, as a system in which only a part of the carrier classes with an individual driver-passenger is considered, that is, carrier classes that carry plural travel demands are excluded. Route class This class was originally intended to represent rail tracks, roads and air routes, together with their maintenance functions. This class is important; par-

5 Cyberrail 655 ticularly when we introduce numerical and statistical control over railway facilities. We, in Japan, sometimes, have to restrain railway traffic due to probable natural disasters, such as strong winds. If we could predict precise probability of the hazards, we could reduce the occasion of holding traffic, or make a detour plan for a train. In addition to the physical routes, we could expand this class to logical routes, which is a graph, logically representing connections of points in fourdimensional space, x, y, z and time axes. A travel is a movement from one place to another, while being aware of time. Train timetable is a very example, though the geographical dimension is reduced. Guidance map in a station may be another good example without a time axis. We have a problem how to represent a node in train timetable graph, which seems to be a graph recursively describing structures of a station or a station area. These graphs would be key elements for guidance of travel and movement. 5. CONCLUSION An intermodal transport should be the mode of transport in the future, which is more environmentally friendly. For a short distance travel, railways definitely play a central role. CyberRail observations convince us the necessity of logical cooperation among three classes. We could develop an intermodal transport model upon this concept.