DIAMOND - Delivery of ITS Applications through Multimedia Over Networks Using DAB
Overview
Background & policy context:
Intelligent transport systems already aid a great deal of our travel today: they provide up-to-the-minute information about traffic jams, can guide us from door-to-door using automatic navigation systems and can tell us when and where the next bus, tram or train is arriving. They can alert us to accidents ahead and provide us with an alternative route, tell us what the weather will be like, help us plan our journey, even when we are already on route, book a hotel or restaurant and find the nearest open pharmacy.
Before DIAMOND several attempts have been made in the filed of delivering ITS information to moving objects. The most famous ones are today’s RDS (radio data system) and TMC (traffic message channel) systems. However, the results could not take the pace of developments in Internet and multimedia. With the introduction of the digital broadcast system DAB (digital audio broadcast), the development to support a wide range of multimedia ITS services seems to be reality. The DIAMOND project was establishing the technical and commercial feasibility to provide evidence that the approach using DAB in combination with cellular phones (GSM) and positioning systems (GPS) really works.
Objectives:
The main objective of DIAMOND is to establish the technical and commercial feasibility of DAB based ITS services. This is achieved by developing and improving ITS services and supporting their implementation.
In order to establish the technical feasibility, DIAMOND will provide the technological basis. By building on the state of the art a wide range of services are enabled. The functionality required is reflected in the developed specifications.
The commercial feasibility is established by creating a wide range of ITS services for use at home, during travel and at leisure. Based on the user response and the projects technical work, the winning choices enabling a successful rollout and operation thereafter are identified.
Three mechanisms are used to support the development and implementation: the installation in the demonstration sites, the specification of a test platform and a project forum. This will accomplish the mission to create results, which leads to substantial commercial services in the three to five year’s time frame after the project (2004 – 2006).
Methodology:
The methodology of the DIAMOND project has encompassed the following activities:
- Create technical specifications for applications in three modes (broadcast, interactive and dynamic navigation) as a technical foundation;
- Using these technical specifications, create a laboratory model and end-user terminals so that the technical specifications can be assessed against a benchmark;
- Create the relevant technical requirements; evaluate MEMO and similar technology platforms and optimise them for ITS applications; develop appropriate exchange formats for easy insertion of services. All to ensure that ITS applications can be carried on the project’s technological platform;
- Specify and harmonise HMI for different environments, creating HMI API and guidelines. This should ensure that the project’s results can be safely and effectively adopted by the endusers;
- Produce technical architecture and guidelines; identify everything for winning services, target applications for a service architecture; identify and quantify user needs in order to establish key criteria for the success of future commercial services; choose winner applications; develop operational and quality procedures;
- Analyse and recommend appropriate remedial measures on the basis of the assessment of the impact of services and the quality of services in the DIAMOND Demonstration sites;
- Develop the business model. Disseminate the project results in order to convince the ITS community and the other major actors of the benefits of DIAMOND;
- Identify issues necessary to secure a better regulatory framework in order to raise the profile of data services within the DAB ensemble and to help convince regulators to make appropriate additional frequencies available.
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