Overview
Social and economic development in cities require a continuous expansion of roads and infrastructure, which in turn stimulate more development, usually leading to near saturation conditions of the transport network. Haifa, Israel and Athens, Greece are no exception to this rule. This has resulted in a number of negative effects on transport networks including high levels of road congestion, increased costs, increasing number of accidents and environmental pollution.
To achieve society’s goals for sustainable development, the transport sector needs to become more environmentally friendly, and sustainable transportation policies need to be promoted (IPCC, 2007). Against this background, travel behaviour researchers aim to better understand the inherent complexity of transport choices and their determinants, to provide more effective decision support tools that analysts and policy makers can use to promote sustainable transportation. To this end, research on improved travel information; more efficient travel management systems and novel mobility concepts can offer substantial benefits towards cleaner, safer and more efficient transport. The improved convenience and capabilities of smartphones have facilitated their emergence, as an essential companion for travellers to address a variety of their needs.
The proposed project envisages developing a suit of novel smart mobility services (iServices) based on mobile technology, that will support city residents and visitors/tourists to reach their final destination in the most efficient and suitable way using public and/or private transportation means. All iServices will be developed & demonstrated for mega sport/cultural events and will exploit content from: (a) public transport organizations (providing traffic information, PTM timetables, routes and fares, station, stop and toll locations, national geographic departments and public information available on the internet, etc); (b) transportation system users (providing real time travel information, as well-as other related information, through their mobile devices); and (c) road transport authorities/operators (traffic monitoring devices, such as Bluetooth sensors, cameras, traffic reports, etc.).
In addition, a smart-phone application for innovative data collection will be developed, serving as a personal life logger and collecting real time information through sensors (such as Wi-Fi, GSM, and GPS). The information acquired will be validated and customized by the users through a web in
The approach to develop iServices and measure and model travel behaviour is multidimensional and multi-disciplinary one, with strong crossover between economic, social sciences (sociology, psychology, management) and engineering (transportation, electrical, computer science). The multidisciplinary approach aims at:
- Identifying a unified methodology for the measurement of travel behaviour. This methodology integrates the different modes and mobility schemes into a single transportation mix. Better managing transportation demand to satisfy European Commissions’ environmental targets and the travellers needs;
- Developing and realizing a variety of personalized smart mobility services (iServices, such as route recommendation, parking availability, etc.) for mega events, which will harmonize information from different data sources;
- Developing an innovative, non-intrusive, light-weight and easy to use App for data collection based on mobile technology. The App also has a feature of prompted-recall interaction in the web-browser for validation purposes; and
- Using innovative methodologies to model travellers’ happiness/satisfaction, and use the findings to contribute to the increase of the overall wellbeing of the individual travellers (residents and tourists) and the society as a whole.
Social and economic development in cities require a continuous expansion of roads and infrastructure, which in turn stimulate more development, usually leading to near saturation conditions of the transport network. Haifa, Israel and Athens, Greece are no exception to this rule. This has resulted in a number of negative effects on transport networks including high levels of road congestion, increased costs, increasing number of accidents and environmental pollution.
To achieve society’s goals for sustainable development, the transport sector needs to become more environmentally friendly, and sustainable transportation policies need to be promoted (IPCC, 2007). Against this background, travel behaviour researchers aim to better understand the inherent complexity of transport choices and their determinants, to provide more effective decision support tools that analysts and policy makers can use to promote sustainable transportation. To this end, research on improved travel information; more efficient travel management systems and novel mobility concepts can offer substantial benefits towards cleaner, safer and more efficient transport. The improved convenience and capabilities of smartphones have facilitated their emergence, as an essential companion for travellers to address a variety of their needs.
The proposed project envisages developing a suit of novel smart mobility services (iServices) based on mobile technology, that will support city residents and visitors/tourists to reach their final destination in the most efficient and suitable way using public and/or private transportation means. All iServices will be developed & demonstrated for mega sport/cultural events and will exploit content from: (a) public transport organizations (providing traffic information, PTM timetables, routes and fares, station, stop and toll locations, national geographic departments and public information available on the internet, etc.); (b) transportation system users (providing real time travel information, as well-as other related information, through their mobile devices); and (c) road transport authorities/operators (traffic monitoring devices, such as Bluetooth sensors, cameras, traffic reports, etc.).
In addition, a smart-phone application for innovative data collection will be developed, serving as a personal life logger and collecting real time information through sensors (such as Wi-Fi, GSM, and GPS). The information acquired will be validated and customized by the users through a web i