[gps-talkusers] FW: E-Access Bulletin: May 2006
- To: <gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 10:19:17 -0700
This seems interesting.
+03: Mobile Journey Planner Under Development.
A device providing personalised journey planning aimed at passengers
with a disability is under development and will be tested by vision
impaired people in England and Ireland this Summer.
The project team is developing a personal digital assistant (PDA) with
built-in mobile phone and audio output aimed at people with mobility
impairments to guide users to and from public transport networks and
enable them to request accessible travel information on the move.
'MAPPED,'
(http://www.bmt.org/brochures/Focus%20Issue%202%202005.pdf)
a three-year European Commission funded programme, uses software that
runs both on a central server and on the PDA. The servers and client
"talk" to each other over the General Packet Radio System
(GPRS) mobile phone network.
"Typically a user will enter the start and end points of a route they
want to travel along into the PDA. MAPPED will know where the user is
because it contains a handheld geolocation receiver that communicates
with satellites. It will then suggest a route and at all times send
accessibility information relevant to their location."
There are also plans for the device to allow users to make advance
bookings for assistance at underground stations, for example, possibly
via SMS text sent from the device.
"Public transport is notoriously underused by people with a disability,"
research scientist Dr Gary Randall of British Maritime Technology (BMT -
http://www.bmt.org/ ), developing the device, told delegates at this
month's seminar on location-based services for people with a disability
(http://www.tiresias.org/phoneability/seminar_location_based_services
.htm )
hosted by PhoneAbility
( http://www.tiresias.org/phoneability/ ).
According to Randall, when it comes to journey planning there is a lack
of accessible information for passengers with a disability. "The
combination of services that MAPPED offers is new - all types of routing
and accessibility information and reservation-making."
But digital maps do not currently include information needed by people
with mobility impairments on steps, road gradients doorways, paths and
lifts for example. "Maps need augmenting to include information we
need," Randall said. "It's been a real slog to get the data together and
handle the complexity of that data," Randall said.
Eventually, the device will enable users to add relevant details to maps
as they encounter them.
Following trials in Dublin in Ireland and Winchester in England, further
tests will take place in Barcelona, Spain and Genoa, Italy, in co-
operation with European mobility project ASK-IT ( http://www.ask-it.org/
).
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