Overview
According to the data of World Health Organization, there are 45 million visually disabled in the world today and this amount could even double in the next 20 years. Other sources state that sightless people make up approximately 1-1.5% of the population. It is interesting that 9 out of 10 visually disabled worldwide live in developing countries and the experts estimate that 80% of the blindness can be healed or it could have been prevented. It is worth mentioning that the percentage of partially-sighted people in the population is continually growing.
The project's aim was to develop, examine and create conditions for putting into operation an integrated geographic, acoustic and orientation system, navigating people with impaired sight or sense of direction towards their destination within the city environment.
To obtain a comprehensive view on the whole range of discussed problems and to simplify the transfer of the project's results into real life, the experts from following institutions have been contacted: United organization of sightless and weak-sighted, Rehabilitation institute for visually impaired, Regional center of Union of sightless and weak-sighted, Tyflocenter, Dedina motoric rehabilitation and retraining center, LORM society for hearing and visually impaired, specialised educational center at Jaroslav Ježek's elementary school, people with impaired sense of direction and others.
There were elementary parameters for system design set on basis of the expert group members' responses. It focuses on using MDA mobile devices and Smart phones.
Funding
Results
The project's result was the creation of conditions for integrating proposed system into actual information systems within the frame of the United organisation of Blind and Weak-sighted. The project proposed possible alternative forms of data collection and raised awareness about society's need to face this issue.
Technical Implications
A functional prototype of the MDA platform information system has been developed within the frame of the project. The road technical administrative unit and Urban informatics institute of Prague have provided map documents of Prague 4 - Krc for the project. Navigation attributes necessary for pedestrian navigation have been gathered by project's own collection - pedestrian crossings, footbridges, deployment of communication devices for visually impaired at intersections, public transportation time schedules etc. Everything was then implemented into the prepared testing methodology.
Policy implications
The project dealt with related policy and suggestions for modifying it. Based on meetings with partners of the Integrated transportation systems - the Public administration's decision support systems for implementation and operation of ITS in Czech Republic project - the suggestion has been made during the ongoing marking up proceedings to executing a regulation for the road law no. 13/1997 (as stated in law no. 102/2000, no. 132/2000 and no. 256/2002). This law regulates the obligations of road authorities to provide selected data, important for blind and partially-sighted citizens, among others.
On the European level, prepared standards within the framework of CEN 278 WG3/SG3 technical commission are of importance. Report of proceedings of CEN 278 WG3/SG3 technical commission's public transportation workgroup/man-machine interface subgroup {traffic information for the citizens with impaired sense of direction and motion) .