This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Grant Agreement No 636148.

D1.3 Technology Knowledge Base and Observatory

Project Title: Optimodal European Travel Ecosystem Acronym: EuTravel

Start date of project: 01/05/2015 Duration: 30M

Due date of deliverable: 30/04/2016

Actual submission date: DD/MM/YY

Organisation name of lead contractor for this deliverable: NCSRD

Revision [Draft 0.11]

Dissemination Level

PU Public, fully open

CO Confidential, restricted under conditions set out in Grant Agreement to consortium members and the Commission Services.

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...........................................................................................................................

2. KEY TECHNOLOGIES IN THE TRANSPORT AND TRAVEL INDUSTRY.........................................................

2.1 CLASSIFICATION OF KEY TECHNOLOGIES FOR EACH STAKEHOLDER GROUP....................................................102.1.1 Transport Infrastructure providers - Transport service providers..........................................102.1.2 Travel service providers.........................................................................................................112.1.3 Authorities - Policy makers....................................................................................................132.1.4 Travellers...............................................................................................................................13

2.2 PRESENTATION OF KEY TECHNOLOGIES ...............................................................................................142.2.1 Journey Planners (NCSRD).....................................................................................................142.2.2 Knowledge Based Travel Planners - Recommender Systems (NCSRD & VLTN)......................152.2.3 Travel & Traveller Knowledge Representation - Travel Ontologies (STI)................................202.2.4 Schema extension for Travel Domain....................................................................................282.2.5 Travel APIs.............................................................................................................................292.2.6 Task models and ontologies for travellers (VLTN)..................................................................312.2.7 Semantic enrichment of travel and tourism data and systems - Semantic annotations (STI) 312.2.8 Semantic search for travel portals / travel planners (STI)......................................................312.2.9 Software agent based systems for travel advice (VLTN)........................................................312.2.10 Collaborative filtering approaches (VLTN).........................................................................312.2.11 Customer Relationship Management – User Profiling (VLTN)...........................................312.2.12 Location and context aware services for travellers (VLTN)................................................312.2.13 Geolocation services for travel routing (NCSRD)...............................................................312.2.14 Cloud computing, cloud-based enterprise systems, Virtualisation (NCSRD)......................352.2.15 E-payment Solutions –Smart Cards (NCSRD).....................................................................352.2.16 Mobile & Wearable Travel Technology (NCSRD)...............................................................372.2.17 Big data analytics in the travel/transport industry (BMT).................................................41

3. ITS DEVELOPMENTS AND SUCCESS STORIES ACROSS EUROPE...............................................................

3.1 OPTITRANS (NCSRD)......................................................................................................................443.2 WISETRIP (NCSRD)........................................................................................................................453.3 SHIFT2RAIL (INLECOM)...............................................................................................................453.4 IT2RAIL (INLECOM).....................................................................................................................473.5 TAP-TSI (INLECOM).....................................................................................................................483.6 FULL SERVICE MODEL INITIATIVE (FSM) (INLECOM)...........................................................................493.7 EUROPEAN TRAVELLERS CLUB (BY THE OPENTICKETING INITIATIVE) (INLECOM)........................................513.8 THE BONVOAYAGE PROJECT (INLECOM)...........................................................................................513.9 COOPERATIVE CITIES (CO-CITIES) (INLECOM)....................................................................................523.10 EUROPEAN DIGITAL TRAFFIC INFRASTRUCTURE NETWORK FOR INTELLIGENT TRANSPORT SYSTEMS (EDITS) (INLECOM)..............................................................................................................................................523.11 CIVITAS (2MOVE2) (INLECOM)...................................................................................................523.12 THE POSSE PROJECT (PROMOTING OPEN SPECIFICATIONS AND STANDARDS IN EUROPE) (INLECOM)..........533.13 ECOMPASS PROJECT (NCSRD)......................................................................................................533.14 THE TRANSFORUM PROJECT (NCSRD)................................................................................................533.15 COMPASS (NCSRD).....................................................................................................................543.16 ONTIME (NCSRD)........................................................................................................................553.17 INSTANT MOBILITY (BMT)...............................................................................................................573.18 ALL WAYS TRAVELLING (BMT).........................................................................................................583.19 1ST SMART MOBILITY CHALLENGE (BMT)...........................................................................................59

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3.20 OPTICITIES (BMT)..........................................................................................................................593.21 NODES (BMT).............................................................................................................................613.22 INTERCONNECT (BMT)...............................................................................................................613.23 I-TOUR (BMT)............................................................................................................................623.24 LINKED DATA BENCHMARK COUNCIL (LDBC) (STI)...............................................................................633.25 LOD2 (STI)..................................................................................................................................633.26 LINKED DATA FOR CULTURAL AND TOURISTIC DOMAINS (LDCT) (STI)......................................................633.27 ON-DEMAND DATA-DRIVEN PRODUCTION OF TOURISTIC SERVICE PACKAGES (TOURPACK) (STI)...................633.28 VIAJEO (STI)..................................................................................................................................63

4. TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT – EUTRAVEL FOCUS (INLECOM).................................................................

5. EUTRAVEL KNOWLEDGE BASE AND OBSERVATORY (EBOS)...................................................................

5.1 EUTRAVEL OBSERVATORY SYSTEM – USER VIEW..................................................................................655.1.1 How to login..........................................................................................................................655.1.2 Main Page.............................................................................................................................655.1.3 Dropdown Lists......................................................................................................................665.1.4 Upload Files...........................................................................................................................665.1.5 Navigation Tree.....................................................................................................................675.1.6 Glossary Terms......................................................................................................................695.1.7 Events....................................................................................................................................705.1.8 Journals.................................................................................................................................715.1.9 Experts...................................................................................................................................72

5.2 EUTRAVEL OBSERVATORY SYSTEM – ADMIN VIEW................................................................................745.2.1 How to login..........................................................................................................................745.2.2 Main Page.............................................................................................................................745.2.3 Dropdown Lists......................................................................................................................755.2.4 Upload Files...........................................................................................................................755.2.5 Modules.................................................................................................................................765.2.6 Templates..............................................................................................................................775.2.7 Navigate Tree........................................................................................................................795.2.8 Subject Categories.................................................................................................................815.2.9 Glossary Terms......................................................................................................................845.2.10 Events................................................................................................................................855.2.11 Journals.............................................................................................................................865.2.12 Experts..............................................................................................................................875.2.13 Registrations.....................................................................................................................88

5.3 EUTRAVEL OBSERVATORY – PUBLIC SITE.............................................................................................905.3.1 Welcome Page.......................................................................................................................905.3.2 Subject Info Page...................................................................................................................94

6. APPENDIX A.........................................................................................................................................

7. REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................

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Document Summary Information NCSRD

Abstract

Keywords

Authors and contributors

Initials Name Organisation RoleEG Eftichia Georgiou LEAD IF Ioanna ILSSC Stelios Christofi eBOS AuthorKP Kyriakos Petrou eBOS Author

Revision history (including peer reviewing)Revision Date Who CommentDraft v0.1Draft v0.2

EG

Draft v0.3

07.07.2015 IF Updated TOC, assigned partners per paragraph

Draft v0.4

25.01.2015 KP Draft version of Ebos review (Chapter 5)

Final v1 Peer Reviewer

Quality controlRole Who DateDeliverable leaderQuality managerProject managerTechnical manager

DisclaimerThe content of the publication herein is the sole responsibility of the publishers and it does not necessarily represent the views expressed by the European Commission or its services.While the information contained in the documents is believed to be accurate, the authors(s) or any other participant in the EuTravel consortium make no warranty of any kind with regard to

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this material including, but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.Neither the EuTravel Consortium nor any of its members, their officers, employees or agents shall be responsible or liable in negligence or otherwise howsoever in respect of any inaccuracy or omission herein.Without derogating from the generality of the foregoing neither the EuTravel Consortium nor any of its members, their officers, employees or agents shall be liable for any direct or indirect or consequential loss or damage caused by or arising from any information advice or inaccuracy or omission herein.

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AbbreviationsAPI Application Programming InterfaceBPEL Business Process Execution LanguageCER Community of European Railway and Infrastructure CompaniesCIP Competitiveness and Innovation Framework ProgrammeCRS Computer Reservation System

 

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List of FiguresFIGURE 2-1 CLASSES OF TRAVEL ONTOLOGY FROM SWAT PROJECT.........................................................................23FIGURE 2-2 CLASSES OF GTFS...........................................................................................................................24FIGURE 2-3 CLASSES OF TRAVEL BUSINESS ONTOLOGY FROM TAGA.........................................................................26FIGURE 2-4 CLASSES OF TRAVEL ONTOLOGY FROM TRAVEL GUIDES..........................................................................27FIGURE 2-5 CLASSES OF KM4C..........................................................................................................................29FIGURE 2-6 MOVEACTION PLAN OF SCHEMA.ORG................................................................................................30FIGURE 2-7 RELATED CLASSES FOR MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION...............................................................................31FIGURE 2-8 RELATED CLASSES FOR RELATIVELY SHORT STAYS IN BETWEEN MOVEMENTS.................................................31FIGURE 2-9 INITIAL CLASSIFICATION OF TRAVEL RELATED APIS..................................................................................32FIGURE 3-1 SHIFT2RAIL – INNOVATION PROGRAMMES...........................................................................................49

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List of TablesTABLE 2-1: KEY TECHNOLOGIES FOR TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE – TRANSPORT SERVICE PROVIDERS.............................10TABLE 2-2: KEY TECHNOLOGIES FOR TRAVEL SERVICE PROVIDERS..............................................................................11TABLE 2-3: KEY TECHNOLOGIES FOR POLICY MAKERS..............................................................................................13TABLE 2-4: KEY TECHNOLOGIES FOR TRAVELLERS..................................................................................................13TABLE 5 GEOLOCATION TECHNIQUES ..................................................................................................................33TABLE 7 SEASONAL GROWTH OF MOBILE BOOKINGS. SOURCE: CRITEO: TRAVEL. FLASH REPORT. SEPTEMBER 2014...........38TABLE 8 WORLDWIDE WEARABLE DEVICE SHIPMENTS, YEAR-OVER-YEAR GROWTH AND CAGR BY PRODUCT CATEGORY,

2014, 2015, AND 2019 (UNITS IN MILLIONS) SOURCE: INTERNATIONAL DATA CORPORATION (IDC) WORLDWIDE QUARTERLY WEARABLE DEVICE TRACKER....................................................................................................38

TABLE 10: FSM WORKING GROUPS...................................................................................................................51

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1. Executive Summary

On completion please insert here a short executive summary for the deliverable. This should inform the reader on: The subject of the deliverable Summary of the work carried out The main conclusion(s) The purpose of the deliverable (i.e. input to task x)

D1.3 Identifies leading edge technologies, ITS developments and success stories across Europe that will be consolidated in the initial project knowledge leading to the selection of technologies to be used and to be monitored. Inventory, structuring and publishing via the web portal of relevant information in a useful way, transforming information into knowledge. Lessons learned from the living labs will be added. The Observatory will be part of the outputs to form part of the EuTravel Sustainability plan.

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2. Key Technologies in the transport and Travel industry

2.1 Classification of key technologies for each stakeholder group

General Scope: Review of Technologies for multimodal planning, booking, monitoring, completion; Identification of reference projects for liaison and reuse of knowledge and their exploitable technology result.

2.1.1 Transport Infrastructure providers - Transport service providers

Table 2-1: Key technologies for Transport Infrastructure – Transport Service providers

Category of Function Technologies used

Interconnection management services ITS connectors

Multimodal Planning Software Agent based systems for travel adviceCloud computing

Fleet Management Software Agent based systems for travel adviceCloud computing

Infrastructure and Transport Services Centralised management services of transport infrastructure (Ferry, Rail, Coach, Air)Virtualization Cloud computing

Booking Travel ontologies e.g. Map & Route ontologies

Knowledge Based Travel Planners - Recommender Systems

Account-based ticketing (ABT) ITS solutions

Cloud computingData analytics for optimization of demand, capacity, schedules cost, revenueSoftware Agent based systems for travel advice

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Virtualization

Transport Management Data analytics for optimization of demand, capacity, schedules cost, revenue

Monitoring Travel ontologies e.g. Map & Route ontologies

Data analytics for optimization of demand, capacity, schedules cost, revenue

Route Planning / Scheduling Knowledge Based Travel Planners - Recommender Systems

Geolocation services for travel/route planning

Data analytics for optimization of demand, capacity, schedules cost, revenue

Payment/Fulfilment

2.1.2 Travel service providers

Table 2-2: Key technologies for Travel Service providers

Category of Function Technologies used

GDS Management Web Services (APIs)

Inventory Management

Dynamic multimodal planning Geolocation services for travel planning Data Integration and analysis

Real time Data collection services across all modes

Incident Management ITS connectorsincident detection and recording Classification and initial support Investigation and analysis Resolution and recovery Incident closure Incident ownership, monitoring, tracking and communication Establish incident framework management Evaluation of incident framework

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managementData Integration and analysisReal time Data collection services across all modes

Booking Management Travel ontologies e.g. Map & Route ontologies

Knowledge Based Travel Planners - Recommender Systems

Account-based ticketing (ABT) ITS solutions

Cloud computing

Data analytics for optimization of demand, capacity, schedules cost, revenueSoftware Agent based systems for travel advice

Virtualization

Geolocation services for travel planning

Customer Management Personalization services (i.e. user profiling)Advertisement servicesRecommender SystemsKnowledge extraction

Payment Management Payment options

Route Planning / Scheduling Knowledge Based Travel Planners - Recommender SystemsGeolocation services for travel/route planning Real time Data collection services across all modes

Data analytics for optimization of demand, capacity, schedules cost, revenue

Data Integration and analysis

Payment/Fulfilment

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2.1.3 Authorities - Policy makers

Table 2-3: Key technologies for Policy makers

Category of Function Technologies used

Mobility Management (Strategic Planning, Performance and Demand Management)

Policy implementation and monitoring

2.1.4 Travellers

Table 2-4: Key technologies for Travellers

Category of Function Technologies used

SearchingPlanning and Booking Knowledge Based Travel Planners -

Recommender SystemsSemantic Web Technologies

Ticketing Account-based ticketing (ABT) ITS solutions (cloud based services)Smart Cards

Travelling Geo-location based servicesTraveler satisfaction service Advice on legislation

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2.2 Presentation of key technologies

2.2.1 Journey Planners (NCSRD)

Journey planners have been widely used in the travel industry since the 1970s by booking agents accessed through a user interface on a computer terminal, and to support call center agents providing public transport information. A multimodal journey planner is an IT system able to propose a set of one or more transport services answering at least the question “How can I go from location A to location B at a given departure/arrival date and time and under which conditions”. The most common point of access is via a specific web service.

Many Journey planners are already available on the Internet providing a wide variety of services in terms of geographical convergence, modes used, multimodality, type of information used, media used, itinerary planning capabilities. The development tendencies that influence the quality of journey planning are the following:

Multimodality, Real-time data, Location based services, Personal preferences.

The evaluation study of multimodal Journey Planners conducted by Domokos Esztergar – Kiss and Csaba Csiszar 1 considering urban journey planners such as the Hungarian BKV, the TfL in London, the RATP in Paris and the Austrian AnachB, railway journey planners, such as the Hungarian Elvira, Raileurope, the system of the German railways (DB) and the solution of the Austrian railways (ÖBB), called SCOTTY, low-cost and service- independent solutions airline journey planners such as Wizzair, Lufthansa and Skyscanner, and systems with international relations and multi- modal planning options such as the German Bayerninfo, the French Eco-comparateur, the EU-Spirit (its realization is VBB), the Swiss RouteRANK and the international WiseTrip, indicated that multimodality is rather typical for the journey planners, real-time data and personalized preferences turn up only partially and the location based services are mostly missing.

Existing commercial systems for journey planning are adequately providing such services i.e. at a regional level (e.g. within a city) or on the basis of a single transport mode, but the combination of multilevel information at a wider scale and the delivery of dynamic personalised data has not been yet properly addressed.

A more theoretical approach on journey planners’ characteristics supports that transferability is highly desired. To achieve transferability, the initial design must take into account all factors that may diverge between locations, including existing modes of transport, the availability of required data, the technological habits of users, etc. In consequence, a highly transferable system is difficult and expensive to develop and maintain. A very flexible initial design, one ensuring low-cost adaptability of the system for different cities, regions, or countries, might not be cost-effective. The process of changeability assessment (e.g., transferability) is examined in light of the goals of journey planning from the point of view of different stakeholders: travelers, private developers, and transport authorities. The analysis demonstrates how tradespace exploration 1 Evaluation of Multimodal Journey Planners: Definition of Service Levels. Domokos Esztergár-Kiss & Csaba Csiszár. Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

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can also be used to identify specific designs that bridge the gap between the public and private sectors and provide value over time to all parties. Moreover, when specific concerns of public authorities are not met, tradespace exploration can reveal measures the public sector can take (financial or others) for making their preferred design attractive to the private sector as well.2

Another key factor regarding journey planner’s performance is network analysis. A innovative method was conducted predicting the distribution of passenger throughput across stations and lines of a city rapid transit system by calculating the normalized betweenness centrality of the nodes (stations) and edges of the rail network. The method is evaluated by correlating the distribution of betweenness centrality against throughput distribution which is calculated using actual passenger ridership data. The correlation is improved significantly when the data points are split according to their separate lines, illustrating differences in the intrinsic characteristics of each line. The simple procedure established here shows that static network analysis of the structure of a transport network can allow transport planners to predict with sufficient accuracy the passenger ridership, without requiring dynamic and complex simulation methods.3

2.2.2 Knowledge Based Travel Planners - Recommender Systems (NCSRD & VLTN)

Recommender Systems are software tools and techniques providing suggestions for items to be of use to a user. The suggestions provided are aimed at supporting their users in various decision-making processes, such as what items to buy, what music to listen, or what news to read. Capturing the feedback of the user along with analytics on the travel planners use and preferences makes it possible for a knowledge base to be constructed. Therefore, there can be a single point of reference in case a new request reaches the journey planner core algorithm and request a personalized and customized reply/solution.

One of the key factors to measure the recommendation algorithm is the accuracy. If the recommendation lists made by the system is very different from the users’ interests, the users will lose his/her confidence in the system and probably ignore the future information provided by system. The system makes recommendations based on the users’ records, which should be as personalized as possible so that the users’ requirements can be sufficiently satisfied.

To examine the potential of such a system, the casual relationship between controlled factors, which are the independent variables, and multiple analyzed responses, which are the dependent variables, were identified and measured. A number of controlled factors were identified that were relevant to the evaluation of an expert system for the TRS. The factors which also can be defined as key components of an expert system are: Multi-Dimensional Coverage, Experience, Filtering Methods and a Complexity of a Task. Each of these factors were set at only two extreme values, a low value (-1) and a high value (+1), as the experimental designs is to test for the significance of main effects and combinations of main effects. Using

2 Incorporating Systems Engineering Methodologies to Increase the Transferability of Journey Planners. Sharon Shoshany-Tavory, Ayelet Gal-Tzur, Niv Eden. Transportation Research Procedia 3 ( 2014 ) 631 – 640. Science Direct. 3 A Method to Ascertain Rapid Transit Systems’ throughput Distribution Using Network Analysis. Muhamad Azfar Ramli , Christopher Pineda Monterola, , Gary Lee Kee Khoon , Terence Hung Gih Guang. ICCS 2014. 14th International Conference on Computational Science.

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comparatively few treatment runs, the researcher determined which factor or factors cause significant changes in the performance measure.

In tourism recommendation systems, the number of users and items is very large. But traditional recommendation system uses partial information for identifying similar characteristics of users. Collaborative filtering is the primary approach of any recommendation system. It provides a recommendation, which is easy to understand. It is based on similarities of user opinions like rating or likes and dislikes. So the recommendation provided by collaborative cannot be considered as quality recommendation. Recommendation after association rule mining is having high support and confidence level. So that will be considered as strong recommendation. The hybridization of both collaborative filtering and association rule mining can produce strong and quality recommendation even when sufficient data are not available. This paper combines recommendation for tourism application by using a hybridization of traditional collaborative filtering technique and data mining techniques. 4

Recommender systems are commonly defined as applications that e-commerce sites exploit to suggest products and provide consumers with information to facilitate their decision-making processes (Ricci, 2002).5 They map user requirements and preferences, through appropriate recommendation algorithms, and convert them into recommendations of a small subset of products/services out of a very large set. Knowledge about the products/services and consumers is extracted from either domain experts (in content- or knowledge- based recommendation approaches) or the analysis of previous purchase and recommendation histories (collaborative-based approaches). Furthermore, the recommendations are presented to the user/consumer together with a rationale for the underlying recommendation.

Recommenders can help to increase online sales; analyst Jack Aaronson of the Aaronson Group estimates that investments in recommenders bring in returns of 10 to 30 percent, thanks to the increased sales they drive (Konstan & Riedl, 2012).6 There is potential for further utilisation of recommender systems.

Personalized Collaborative RecommendationsAlthough several recommendation algorithms have been devised, these days, the most prevalent one is collaborative filtering. All major ecommerce and social media sites such as Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook’s employ some variant of collaborative filtering techniques. They are “personalized” because they track the user’s behaviour—pages viewed, purchases, and ratings—to produce recommendations. The approach is called “collaborative” because it treats two items (products/services (as being related based on the fact that lots of other customers have purchased or stated a preference for those items, rather than by analysing sets of product features or keywords.

Personalized collaborative recommender systems have been around since the early 1990s. Some of the early recommenders include the GroupLens project7, targeting movie

4 A Modified Approach towards Tourism Recommendation System with Collaborative Filtering and Association Rule Mining. Monali Gandhi, Khushali Mistry, Mukesh Patel. International Journal of Computer Applications. 5 F. Ricci and H. Werthner, “Case-Based Querying for Travel Planning Recommendation,” Information Technology and Tourism, vol. 4, nos. 3–4, 2002, pp. 215–226.6 Joseph A. Konstan, John Riedl. Deconstructing Recommender Systems: How Amazon and Netflix predict your preferences and products you purchase. IEEE Spectrum, Sept. 20127 www.grouplens.org/

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recommendations, and MIT’s Ringo for music recommendations. Both GroupLens and Ringo use a simple collaborative algorithm that computes the “distance” between pairs of users based on how much they agree on items they have both rated. Users whose tastes are relatively “near” each other according to these calculations are said to be in the same “neighbourhood.”

However user similarity recommendations tend to suffer from problems such as the lack of sufficient data sets because most pairs of users have only a few ratings in common or none at all. However, it is not always easy to form neighbourhoods that make sense. Most recommendation systems today rely on item distance algorithms, which calculates the distance between each pair of items according to how closely users who have rated them agree. Distances between pairs of items, which may be based on the ratings of thousands or millions of users, tend to be relatively stable over time, so recommenders can precompute distances and generate recommendations more quickly. Both Amazon and Netflix use variants of an item-item algorithm. One problem with both user-user and item-item algorithms is the inconsistency of ratings. Users often do not rate the same item the same way if offered the chance to rate it again. Researchers therefore are trying different ways to incorporate such variables into their models; for example, some recommenders will ask users to rerate items when their original ratings seem out of sync with everything else the recommender knows about them.

Both content and collaborative filtering algorithms are too inflexible as they can detect people who prefer the same item but they can miss potential pairs who prefer very similar items.

A method to compute the similarity of items is dimensionality reduction that reduces the potentially very large number of features to a smaller representative subset. This method is however more computationally intensive than the other recommendation algorithms, as the time it takes to factor the matrix grows quickly with the number of customers and products. This more general representation allows the recommender to detect users who prefer similar yet distinct items. And it substantially compresses the matrix, making the recommender more efficient.

To calculate the customer’s similarity to other customers, the recommender has to the customer’s preferences. There are many methods to achieve that, for example by asking customers to rate their purchases. The recommender uses the user’s navigation history through its website and items clicked on to suggest complementary items, and it combines purchase data with user ratings to build a profile of user’s long-term preferences.

Recommenders also utilise business rules that help ensure its recommendations are both helpful to you and profitable for the retailer.

To build trust, the more sophisticated recommender systems strive for some degree of transparency by giving customers an idea of why a particular item was recommended and letting them correct their profiles if they don’t like the recommendations they’re getting. Explanations like these let users know how reliable a given recommendation is.

There is active research on recommendation algorithms that improve different parameters, as different recommendation systems can target different performance goals. The effectiveness of an algorithm can be determined by comparing its predictions and the actual ratings users give. Sellers care much more about errors on highly rated items than errors on low-rated items, because the highly rated items are the ones users are more likely to buy. Another performance measure is the extent to which recommendations match actual purchases. Such measures

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should however take into account that sometimes users purchase items irrespectively of the recommendations made.

Given the shortcomings of current approaches, research in recommendations has started to focus not at accuracy but also at other attributes, such as serendipity and diversity. Serendipity approaches try to produce unusual recommendations, particularly those that are valuable to one user but not as valuable to other similar users. A diverse list of recommendations is one that does not recommend products services in a single class but also in diverse classes. For example if the user is browsing books, the recommender will also suggest music and computer games.

Recommendation research today are considering to what extent a recommender should help users explore parts of a site’s collection they haven’t looked into—Recommenders could also help expose people to new ideas (Konstan & Riedl, 2012).8

Travel Recommender SystemsFor travel and tourism, the two most successful recommender system technologies are Triplehop’s TripMatcher and VacationCoach’s expert advice platform, Me-Print (used by travelocity.com). TripleHop’s TripMatcher is a recommendation software based upon artificial intelligence and human knowledge that advises travellers on the destinations that best match their needs and preferences. Both of these recommender systems try to mimic the interactivity observed in traditional advice provided by travel agents, when users search for advice on a possible holiday destination. From a technical viewpoint, they primarily use a content-based approach, in which the user expresses needs, benefits, and constraints using predefined features/attributes. The system then matches the user preferences with travel services in a catalog of destinations. VacationCoach exploits user profiling by explicitly asking the user to classify himself/herself in one of predefined traveller profiles, which induces implicit needs that the user doesn’t provide. The user can even input precise profile information by completing the appropriate form.

TripleHop’s matching engine guesses importance of attributes that the user does not explicitly mention. It then combines statistics on past user queries with a prediction computed as a weighted average of importance assigned by similar users.

Recent recommender systems add multimedia content to recommendations. For example by using the Sharable content object reference model (SCORM) a standard that collates content from various Web sites, and content object repository discovery and registration/resolution architecture. The information related to the recommendation (photos, videos) collected is stored in the form of an XML file. This XML file can be visualised by either converting it into a Flash movie or into a synchronized multimedia integration language (SMIL) presentation.

Limitations of current recommender systems for tourismExisting systems do not support the user in building a personalised multi-stage trip, that consists of multimodal travel, accommodation and visiting of cultural and other touristic attractions. Such systems therefore help the users to decide only the destination of their travel. To make effective recommendations, however, factors that influence destination choice need to be identified; these include both personal features and travel features. The first group contains

8 Joseph A. Konstan, John Riedl. Deconstructing Recommender Systems: How Amazon and Netflix predict your preferences and products you purchase. IEEE Spectrum, Sept. 2012

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both socioeconomic factors (such as age, education, and income) and psychological and cognitive ones (personality and attitudes towards travel). The second group might include travel purpose, travel-party size, length of travel, distance, and transportation mode. These various factors affect all stages of the traveller’s decision-making process, which is a complex constructive activity (Ricci, 2002).9 Another reason why these systems focus on destination selection relates to the content-based approach they employ. To apply the same filtering technology to other tourism concepts, e,g. hotels, the system would have to create a knowledge base of hotels containing the features considered by the algorithm.

Thus Ricci (2002)10 argues that this approach does not scale without a costly knowledge-engineering activity for each travel product type. Currently, the focus is on destinations because they are rather stable, reusable concepts, i.e. corresponding to major geographical regions, resorts, cities etc. While collaborative filtering approaches do not suffer from this problem, Ricci (2002) argues they suffer from another problem: the availability of sufficient data for comparison. Two trips are very unlikely to be similar under all considered parameters- unlike other less complex products such as music and books. Hybrid approaches that combine content- and collaborative-based approaches are therefore more likely succeed.

Multi-stage and multi decision travel recommendersThe interactions between the user and the recommender system in a basic recommendation process (moving from needs to products with explanations), is not always linear and straightforward.

While some systems e.g. used by Amazon produce non-interactive recommendations, others such as www.activebuyersguide.com involves a user searching for a vacation in a multistage interaction. First, the site asks about the vacation’s general characteristics (type of vacation, activities, accommodation, and so forth). Second, it asks for details related to these characteristics, then for trade-offs between characteristics. Finally, it recommends destinations. It is argued that an interactive approach, where questions are fine-tuned as the human–machine interaction unfolds, has more potential (Ricci, 2002).11

Researchers have therefore argued that recommender systems should support multiple decision styles. The DieToRecs recommender (Ricci et al, 2006)12 supports these decision styles by letting the user enter the system through: iterative single-item selection, complete travel selection, and inspiration-driven selection. Iterative single-item selection allows experienced users to efficiently navigate in the potentially overwhelming information space. The user can select whatever products he or she likes and in the preferred order, using the selections done up to a certain point (and in the past) to personalize the next stage. For example, if the user

9 F. Ricci and H. Werthner, “Case-Based Querying for Travel Planning Recommendation,” Information Technology and Tourism, vol. 4, nos. 3–4, 2002, pp. 215–226.10 F. Ricci and H. Werthner, “Case-Based Querying for Travel Planning Recommendation,” Information Technology and Tourism, vol. 4, nos. 3–4, 2002, pp. 215–226.11 F. Ricci and H. Werthner, “Case-Based Querying for Travel Planning Recommendation,” Information Technology and Tourism, vol. 4, nos. 3–4, 2002, pp. 215–226.12 F. Ricci, Daniel R. Fesenmaier, Nader Mirzadeh, Hildegard Rumetshofer, Erwin Schaumlechner, Adriano Venturini, Karl W. Wöber and Andreas H. Zins. DieToRecs: A Case-based Travel Advisory system. Travel Advisory System. In CAB International 2006. Destination Recommendation Systems: Behavioural Foundations and Applications (eds D.R. Fesenmaier, H. Werthner and K.W. Wöber)

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selects a particular destination, that destination is used to recommend a particular accommodation.

Complete travel selection option the user select a personalized travel plan that bundles items by reusing the structure of travels built by other users in similar sessions. Finally, inspiration-driven selection lets the user choose a complete trip by means of a simpler user interface and a short interaction. The approach integrates case-based reasoning with interactive query refinement. Interactive query refinement allows a more flexible dialogue management that handles failures due to over- or underspecified user needs, suggesting precise repair actions. Case based reasoning therefore provides the framework to cast a recommendation session into a case and similarity-based ordering of both complete trips and single services (Ricci et al 2006).13

In other words, as Ricci et al (2006) argue, an effective travel recommender system should not only notice the user’s main needs or constraints in a top-down way but also allow the exploration of the option space and support the active construction of user preferences (in a bottom-up way). Recent research has emphasized this change of perspective, defining it as navigation by proposing. In this approach, the system shows the user examples of products, selected from those that the initial query retrieved. The user can choose a product as the current best choice, which updates the initial query and lets the recommender identify a new set of suggestions. These approaches use the concept of relevance feedback, used in information retrieval. in a conversational, multistage interaction, in a dialog that interleaves needs elicitation with products. In conclusion, recommender systems for travel must carefully manage the human–machine dialogue to achieve usability and acceptance by the users.

2.2.3 Travel & Traveller Knowledge Representation - Travel Ontologies (STI)

A travel ontology has been proposed by the SWAT Project14. The current version (v26) of the ontology consists of 146 classes, 64 object properties, and 8 data properties.

13 F. Ricci, Daniel R. Fesenmaier, Nader Mirzadeh, Hildegard Rumetshofer, Erwin Schaumlechner, Adriano Venturini, Karl W. Wöber and Andreas H. Zins. DieToRecs: A Case-based Travel Advisory system. Travel Advisory System. In CAB International 2006. Destination Recommendation Systems: Behavioural Foundations and Applications (eds D.R. Fesenmaier, H. Werthner and K.W. Wöber)

14 SWAT Project, http://swatproject.org

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Figure 2-1 Classes of Travel Ontology from SWAT Project

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GTFS15 which has been superceeding the Transit vocabulary16 is a translation of the General Transit Feed Specification17 as an open standard data format for public transport schedules. Current version (11.01.2015) has 29 classes, 19 object properties and 22 data properties.

Figure 2-2 Classes of GTFS

15 GTFS Specification, http://vocab.gtfs.org/16 Transit vocabulary, https://github.com/iand/vocab-transit17 General Transit Feed Specification, https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/reference

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TAGA is an agent framework for simulating the global travel market on the web 18. The framework provides several ontologies: Travel Business; Auction; FIPA OWL content language; TAGA Query language. The travel business ontology contains 34 classes and 16 object properties.

18 TAGA Framework, http://taga.sourceforge.net/

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Figure 2-3 Classes of Travel Business Ontology from TAGA

Travel Guides19 utilizes Semantic Web technologies to decrease the maintenance efforts required for existing e-Tourism systems and ease the process of searching for vacation packages.

It provides a travel ontology as an extension of the PROTON Ontology, contains 67 classes, 19 object properties and 3 data properties.

19 Travel Guides, https://sites.google.com/site/ontotravelguides/Home

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Figure 2-4 Classes of Travel Ontology from Travel Guides

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Knowledge Model for City and Mobility KM4C is a knowledge model to describe a smart city, that interconnect data from infomobility service, Open Data and other source20. Current version (28.07.2015) contains 605 classes, 98 object properties and 120 data properties.

Figure 2-5 Classes of KM4C

20 KM4C, http://lov.okfn.org/dataset/lov/vocabs/km4c

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To summarize our survey on Travel Ontologies, we measure three important aspects in travel domain.1. Capability to describe activity of moving from one location to another

a. Describe who is travellingb. Describe the original locationc. Describe the final location

2. Capability to describe means of transporation used when moving from one place to another3. Capability to describe activity to stay for a relatively short time in between movements

We assign an estimation value from 0…1 to each aspect, where 0 means the aspect does not supported completely and 1 means highly supported.

No Ontology Name Aspect #1

Aspect #2

Aspect #3

1 Travel Ontology of SWAT Project 1 1 02 General Transit Feed Specification 0 0.2 03 Travel Agent Game in Agentcities 0 0.2 0.24 Travel Guides 1 1 15 Knowledge Model for City and Mobility 0.2 1 0.4

2.2.4 Schema extension for Travel Domain

Schema.org consists a wide variety of classses and properties21. Specifically for travel activity as the movement of people between distant geographical locations22, we found a highly related class in Schema.org so called “MoveAction” as shown at Figure 2-6 MoveAction Plan ofSchema.org.

Figure 2-6 MoveAction Plan of Schema.org

“MoveAction” is the act of an agent relocation to a place, where the agent can be “Person” or “Organization”. This action requires two “Place” as original and final location respectively. It consists of three sub-classes:1. “ArriveAction” as the act of arriving at a place,2. “DepartAction” as the act of departing from a place,3. “TravelAction” as the act of traveling from a location to a destination.

“MoveAction” has two specific properties, “fromLocation” depicts the original location and “toLocation” as the final location. “TravelAction” itself has property “distance” depicts the distance travelled.21 Schema.org, http://schema.org22 Travel, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel

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Another important aspect for travel activity is it requires a mean of transportation to be able to move from the original to final location. This mean of transportation might be foot, bicycle, train, airplane, etc.

Figure 2-7 Related classes for means of transportation

As shown at Figure 2-7 -7, variety means of transportation classes have been available in the class “Intangible” which is a utility class that serves as the umbrella for a number of ‘intangible’ things.23

Travel could also include stays for a relatively short time between successive travel movements. For example, waiting for another mean of transportation, taking a short rest, etc.

Figure 2-8 Related classes for relatively short stays in between movements

As shown at figure 2-8 several types for short stay in between movements are available in Schema.org in class “CivicStructure” which is a sub-class of “Place”. These types of place do not cover for long stay, for example to eat at Restaurant, to stay at Hotel, etc.

23 Intangible, http://schema.org/Intangible

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2.2.5 Travel APIsWith the proliferation of Application Programming interfaces (APIs) available both privately and publicly, it becomes very difficult to monitor the latest developments in this area. This is partially alleviated by recently established public registries of APIs where their developers/owners are encouraged to register information about them.The API registry used in this research was the Programmable Web (http://www.programmableweb.com) that claims to be the world’s largest repository (registry) for APIs, containing in excess of 14,000 API entries at the time of writing this report. To retrieve travel related APIs the category ‘travel’ was used to retrieve relevant APIs from the Programmable Web repository. This approach however is not guaranteed to return the whole list of travel related APIs, nor only APIs that are relevant to travel, as some travel APIs could possibly have been classified incorrectly. The number of results however, (in excess of 300) indicates that (a) the Programmable Web is a useful source of API information and (b) the proliferation of travel related APIs. Also, although the search opted to exclude deprecated APIs, there is no absolute certainty that the APIs found are still actively used/supported by users and their developers.The next step in the process involved the filtering out of APIs that were deemed to have a narrow geographical coverage, i.e. covering travel information within a city or region- but not country or continent level, as EuTravel has a pan-European scope.

The number of travel APIs in the filtered list obtained in this manner was still too high and therefore not useful to provide patterns, trends and insides into the current travel related API market. As the purpose of EUTravel is to develop an ‘API of APIs’ it was considered important to define the breadth of coverage and scope of such API. This would require some classification of existing travel APIs however. As such classification did not currently exist, we decided to propose one that is empirically derived by analysing the descriptions of the discovered APIs and identifying common themes that appear across them. Thus, this is not a strict classification as APIs may straddle several themes and some APis may appear to not belong to any of the proposed themes. Instead this classification was proposed in an attempt to scope the planned ‘API of APIs’. The classification visualised in the following Figure proposes the following five themes:

Figure 2-9 initial classification of travel related APIs

APIs oriented towards developers that want to integrated/aggregate existing travel services (e.g. to create portals. Mashups, for travel aggregators). These also cover multiple travel modes (sea, land, air) and facilities (e.g. car and hotel hire). These APIs have transactional capability (e.g. create bookings).

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APIs oriented towards one type of service/travel mode (e.g. air travel) and/or one provider (e.g. one particular airline only). These APIs also may have transactional capability.

APIs that provide travel related but static information (e.g. about locations such as places to visit or airports) but they do not (normally) support itinerary planning as timetabling and dynamic travel information is not included

APIs that provide timetable-like information such as bus or flight arrival information, fligh tracking, for single or multi-mode but (normally) no booking functionality.

APIs that allow the sharing of information or resources between travellers, such as recommendations about visiting places, travel routes and trails etc.

Hence, the APIs found in Programmable Web registry were categorised as above and listed in the tables in Appendix A of this report.

2.2.6 Task models and ontologies for travellers (VLTN)

2.2.7 Semantic enrichment of travel and tourism data and systems - Semantic annotations (STI)

2.2.8 Semantic search for travel portals / travel planners (STI)

2.2.9 Software agent based systems for travel advice (VLTN)

2.2.10 Collaborative filtering approaches (VLTN)

2.2.11 Customer Relationship Management – User Profiling (VLTN)

2.2.12 Location and context aware services for travellers (VLTN)

2.2.13 Geolocation services for travel routing (NCSRD)Geolocation is the determination of the physical location of an object (for example a mobile device, a laptop etc.) using various technological methods such as Global Positioning System (GPS), Radio Frequency (RF) location methods, etc. Common uses of Geolocation systems are:

Detecting Points of Interest (POI) on users’ maps. In case of traveling and tourism, POIs can be museums, monuments, entertainment places, etc. Geolocation systems detect

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users’ location and then they assist them in selecting a POI, based on proximity, and then provide navigation services.

Making annotations based on location. Users can express themselves either by providing comments, or photos, or videos, etc. Geolocation systems detect users’ position and combine users ‘actions with their location. These annotated media can be analyzed in further, to discover places with high popularity, common routes, favourite POIs, etc.

User navigation User notification about local information based on users’ location.

Geolocation techniques

The techniques that are used, are divided in four categories: Proximity methods, Triangulation methods, Dead Reckoning and Fingerprinting.

Proximity based methods usually consists of a wireless sensor network which is divided into clusters. The location of each cluster is known. In proximity methods, each user (through his terminal) sends a signal to each cluster’s head node, and becomes assigned to the nearest cluster. The user location approximately corresponds to the location of the cluster that he/she is assigned to. This method has the drawback that large range of cluster’s head node corresponds to lower accuracy.

Triangulation method consists of a wireless sensor network as well. In this method each user sends a signal to several network’s nodes, and then receives the signals back with altered strength and in different times. According to triangulation methods, the user calculates his relevant position to the network’s position. The three most common methods are: (a) the Angle Based Localization, (b) the Range Based Localization and (c) the Distance Based Localization

Angle based localization uses the angle of the received signals in order to calculate each user’s orientation and distance to the cluster’s head. This method, although it is more accurate than the previous one, it is much more expensive because it requires special antennas.

Range based Localization uses the range (signal strength or time of signal’s arrival to users’ terminal) in order to calculate users’ orientation and distance to the cluster’s head. This method consists of three approaches based on the kind of metric it uses (signal strength or signal’s time of arrival): (a) the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), (b) the Time of Arrival (ToA), and (c) the Time Difference of Arrival (TDoA). Range based techniques have the drawback that accuracy is significantly influenced by link reliabilities and noise interferences.

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Distance based Localization uses the hop distance between the sender and the receiver node in order to estimate the relevant location of user, compared to the cluster’s node location. However accuracy in this method is reliable only if the network is dense.

Dead Reckoning (DR) methods make predictions of users’ location based on previous estimated users’ position. These methods do not use any other external information source (eg. Signal from network nodes), but depend on users’ terminal’s built-in sensors such as gyroscopes, accelerometers etc. This method however suffers from accumulative accuracy error which comes from the accumulation of insignificant sensor measurements’ errors.

Fingerprinting methods aim to collect (via built-in sensors, antennas, cameras, etc) features of the environment that are distinctive for the location and orientation of the user, and then match these features (fingerprints) to known fingerprints in order to determine user’s location and orientation. These methods do not require any external or specialized hardware other than the built – in hardware of mobile terminals. However these methods depend highly on environmental features which must be maintained and updated constantly for each location.

Table 5 Geolocation techniques 24

Method MeasurementType

Indooraccuracy

Coverage Line of Sight/ non line of sight

Affected by Multipath

Cost Notes

Proximity Signal Type Low to High

Good Both No Low (1) Accuracy can be improved by using additional antenna, However, it will increase the cost. (2) Accuracy is on the order of the size of the cells

Direction (AoA)

Angle of arrival Medium Good LOS Yes High (1) Accuracy depends on the antennas angular properties (2) Location of antenna must be specified

Time (ToA, TDoA)

Time Difference of arrival

High Good LOS Yes High (1) Time synchronization needs(2) Location of antenna must be specified

Fingerprnting

Received signal strength

High Good Both No Medium

(1) Need Heavy calibration (2)

24 Zahid Farid, Rosdiadee Nordin, and Mahamod Ismail, “Recent Advances in Wireless Indoor Localization Techniques and System,” Journal of Computer Networks and Communications, vol. 2013, Article ID 185138, 12 pages, 2013. doi:10.1155/2013/185138

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Location of antenna is not necessary

Dead reckoning

Acceleration, Velocity

Low to Medium

Good NLOS Yes Low Inaccuracy of the process is cumulative, so the deviation in the position fix grows with time

Technologies used in Geolocation: The most prominent state – of – the art technologies used for geolocation are the following:

Global Positioning System (GPS) is the most used technology for outdoor localization. Although for outdoor localization this technology is satisfying, it is inefficient in environments with large obstacles or indoor locations because the electromagnetic waves transferred between satellites and indoor receiver are attenuated by the buildings and the outdoor obstacles.

Infrared Radiation (IR) positioning systems are based on line-of-sight devices that use infrared radiation for communication. This technology is usually used for indoor localization for detecting or tracking objects or persons and is available in mobile phones, PDAs, TVs, etc. The main advantage of this technology is that it is small and lightweight. However this technology has the following disadvantages: it demands line – of – sight, it has security and privacy issues and it is highly influenced by fluorescent light and sunlight.

Radio frequency positioning systems are based on radio waves which have the advantage of being capable to penetrate obstacles like building walls and human bodies. These systems are used for a variety of sizes of coverage areas, depending on the frequency of radio waves. As a result we have narrow band RF systems (RFID, Bluetooth, WLAN and FM) and wide band systems (UWB). Moreover there is the ZigBee technology which provides solutions for short and medium range communications.

Ultrasound positioning systems are based on ultrasound waves, which imitate the bats’ perception system. These systems use ultrasound signals to estimate the position of the emmiter tags from the receivers. These systems have low level accuracy and suffer a lot of interference from reflected ultrasound signals.

Inertial measurement positioning systems are based on measures of velocity, orientation and gravitational forces using a combination of accelerometers and gyroscopes and sometimes magnetometers. These systems although they are independent of any external hardware and signal, they suffer from accumulated error, because for each location estimation it is added small errors due to measurements, which however accumulate and lead to larger errors after several estimations. As a result these systems demand that after some estimations, the system must acquire (using another method apparently), a correct measurement of location which resets the position and error values.

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Hybrid methods: Combination of the above mentioned technologies in order to reduce each one’s disadvantages and enhance their advantages.

Commercial Geolocation solutions

Apple, Google and Microsoft are the prevailing tech players in localization and navigation technologies, which have implemented hybrid systems that are mainly a combination of GPS (outdoor), Wi-Fi/WIMAX and Bluetooth technologies. Moreover, in indoor localization there are companies that are dedicated to a specific technology:

Locata: Australian company that offers beacons that send out signals that cover large areas and can penetrate walls.

Nokia: They use beacons that send out Bluetooth signals

Navizon, Skyhook, TruePosition: use Wi-Fi technology

ByteLight: They use flickering light patterns from a LED light transmitter, and a terminal receiver (camera on a mobile phone) reads the pattern and sends it to a server where it is compared to other light fingerprints in order to find a match.

IndoorAtlas: Their devices survey buildings for their internal magnetic cap which corresponds to a fingerprint for each location and orientation

2.2.14 Cloud computing, cloud-based enterprise systems, Virtualisation (NCSRD)

e.g. subscription access to enterprise applications in the transport/travel industry, cross-platform on-demand content…

2.2.15 E-payment Solutions –Smart Cards (NCSRD)

The payment methods can be categorized in conventional and alternative/ emerging methods. Credit Cards, cash, check, electronic funds transfer, debit cards are the most common payment methods in the travel industry. It seems though that new ways of payment such as account based ticketing, virtual cards, online wallets, mobile payment, NFC based mobile and cash on delivery are emerging, because of the need of making the payment methods as simple as possible for the end- users by simplifying the travel experience.

Online banking is a very common payment method. The customers of a financial institution are able to conduct financial transactions through the website operated by the financial institution. The customer can execute online a purchase. The payment must be confirmed and after that the amount will be debited from his account. The bank informs the travel agency (in case that the customer bought a ticket) for the payment, and the ticket is sent to the customer.

Smart cards. In public transport card based systems often use smart cards. Smart cards are devices designed to store and, in most cases, process data. Smart cards can store info such as monthly pass, discount rights and tickets. Tickets can be pre-paid or Pay-As-You-Go.

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Mobile payment and Digital wallet. Mobile payments is a new and rapidly adopting alternative payment method. The digital wallet allows users to store holder’s credentials and payment information within a device such as a mobile device. This can include purchasing items on-line with a computer or using a smartphone to purchase something at a store. 25 The biggest players in the market are Apple and Google. Some of the companies in the travel industry that have already embedded wallet payments in their applications are Priceline, Airbnb, Booking.com, Uber and Expedia.26 The Apple Pay mobile-payment and digital-wallet system which was announced in September 2014, lets the consumers with NFC-enabled iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple Watch devices pay in stores at contactless terminals and buy goods using apps that support the service.27 Moreover, PayPal is investing towards this direction by purchasing Paydiant.28

Towards the same direction, Samsung in February 2015 purchased LoopPay which is a company that provides mobile wallet solutions. Visa Inc announced in February 2015 that it has partnered with several leading financial institutions around the world to offer new mobile payment services. BBVA and Cuscal launched new issuer-branded mobile payment applications for mobile devices running on the Android operating system. Additionally Banco do Brazil, PNC Bank, N.A., and U.S. Bank intend to launch similar capabilities in the near future.29

Virtual cards. A digital / virtual card, unlike a plastic card, doesn't require any physical representation in the first place as it is fully virtual and hosted online. Usually a maximum charge for the virtual number is set in order to further protect users’ transactions.

Cloud Based Ticketing - Acount Based TicketingIn the next years it is estimated that the payment methods will move towards the cloud. In the white paper “Cloud based ticketing – Next generation fare collection”30 published by the university of Limerick, UL presents its vision about the next generation of ticketing. The A count Based Ticketing means that the customer will be able to use any means of the transport network rail, bus, ferry etc. and pay with any means of payment such as a card, a pre-paid wallet, mobile or a smart wearable. The customer must have a unique id which will be used for his identification. The terminals of the travel providers have their own ID The payment will link with their account residing out there in the cloud. The cloud which consists of communication networks and server technology will have a big impact in the travel industry. The three areas that are going to be affected by the new technologies and are related to the fare collection are the identification, the fare calculation and the payment. The European Travellers Club (ETC)31 which is an initiative of several European e-Ticketing Schemes in Public Transport, the Open Ticketing Institute and the University of Limerick are working towards the creation of a trusted, easy and seamless Account-Based System across Europe. According to the ETC’s white paper through the account based ticketing the monthly passes, the discount rights are not stored on devices but are stored in a back-office. Moreover through Account-Based Ticketing new chances for cooperation between authorities, financial 25 http://propid.ischool.utoronto.ca/digiwallet_overview/26 http://www.tnooz.com/article/mobile-payments-get-serious-on-google-as-wallet-evolves-to-handle-travel/27 http://www.apple.com/apple-pay/28 http://www.cio.com/article/2891733/mobile-wallet-space-heats-up-as-paypal-buys-paydiant.html29http://www.mobilepaymentstoday.com/news/more-banks-to-offer-cloud-based-mobile-payments-with-visa/30 http://newscience.ul.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Cloud-Based-Ticketing-full-styled.pdf31 http://54138954.swh.strato-hosting.eu/Home/

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institutions, and services providers emerge. As stated in the report travellers in the future will be able to connect their account to cards such as a bankcard, an ID-card or devices such as a mobile phone or a wearable device, which can be used for the payment needs. It will be possible for the travellers to pay before or after their travel. Below are some examples of account based ticketing, based on the white paper of the European Travellers Club project. 32

London contactless cards public transportation33: In London contactless cards can be used in public transport (bus, Tube, tram, DLR, London Overground, TfL Rail and most National Rail services in London.). The cards are used in the same way as Oyster card, the user must touch the card flat on the yellow card reader when he enters and leaves a station but the way of payment is different. This is because the traveller doesn’t add credit before the travel. Payment is effected afterwards, after the end-of-day closing. The total cost of all the journeys that have been made in one day are calculated. The calculations are done in the back-office and a daily cap is applied to the user’s contactless payment card account. OV-Chipkaart, Netherlands, and Mobility Passes: Several mobility providers in the Netherlands such as the Dutch Railways, offer account-based travelling. This may include parking, bike or car rental, etc. An indicator that is an active account based card is contained in the business cards. After end-of-day closing, all transactions are routed through a back-office where also the discount arrangements are applied. Invoices are paid afterwards.

M-Kaart, Luxemburg, and additional services: In Luxemburg, the national transport authority, Verkéiersverbond, has launched a new version of its national e-ticket: the M-Kaart. Travelling itself will be predominantly card-centric on the basis of Germany’s VDV-KA standard. But Verkéiersverbond has started a project with OTI and VDV e-Ticket Service, to test whether the integration with travel information and other government (sponsored) services can best be implemented account-based.

Euregio, Maastricht-Aachen-Liege, and cross-border travelling: In the Euregio, the introduction of three different national e-Ticketing standards has not made life easier for cross-border travellers. In the Netherlands they need to have an OV-Chipkaart, in Germany a VDV-card and in Belgium a MOBIB card. With the support of the European Union, the partners in the region (led by the Aachener Verkehrsverbund) have started a project with OTI and VDV e-Ticket Service to explore strategies to make travelling easier for cross-border travellers. These include readers that can read several cards, smart cards or mobile phones that can contain the data of several cards, and a single account.

2.2.16 Mobile & Wearable Travel Technology (NCSRD)

According to the travel flash report Online travel’s never looked so mobile, mobile bookings are growing faster than desktop. As it is stated in the report in the first six months of 2014, mobile bookings were up to 20%. Moreover the average booking value for air was 21% higher on mobile devices than on desktops and 13% higher for car rentals. 34

32 http://54138954.swh.strato-hosting.eu/Home/33 https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/contactless/what-are-contactless-payment-cards34 http://www.criteo.com/media/1034/criteo-travel-report-sep-2014.pdf

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January February March April May June0

20406080

100120140

Seasonal growth of mobile bookings worldwide in H1 2014

Mobile index Desktop index

Table 6 Seasonal growth of mobile bookings. Source: Criteo: Travel. Flash report. September 2014.

The world of wearable technology is moving fast. There has been an upward trend in the market of wearables in the first quarter of 2015 as new vendors, including Apple, prepared to enter the market. Based on the new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker it is estimated that 72.1 million wearable devices will be shipped in 2015, up to 173.3% in comparison to the 26.4 million units shipped in 2014. According to the same report, the shipment volumes are expected to reach the 155.7 million units in 2019. The annual growth of the shipment is expected to be 42.6% over the five-year forecast period (2014-2019).35

Table 7 Worldwide Wearable Device Shipments, Year-Over-Year Growth and CAGR by Product Category, 2014, 2015, and 2019 (Units in Millions) Source: International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker

Product of Category 2014

Shipments2015 Shipments

2019 Shipments

2015 Year-Over-Year Growth

2014 - 2019 CAGR

Basic Wearables 22.1 39.0 66.3 76.0% 24.5%

Smart Wearables 4.2 33.1 89.4 683.0% 84.1%

All Wearables 26.4 72.1 155.7 173.3% 42.6%

Categories of wearable devices

The term wearable devices refers to advanced technologies incorporated into items which can be worn on the body, such as clothing and accessories. These wearable devices can perform many of the same computing tasks as mobile phones and laptops. Wearable technology comes in different forms in order to cover head, back, waist, arms, body, wrist and legs. The wearable devices tend to be more sophisticated than mobile and laptops on the market today, because

35 http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25696715

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they can provide sensory and scanning features not typically seen in the aforementioned devices, such as biofeedback and tracking of physiological function.36 The most common wearable devices in use, are the following:

Smart phones Smart glasses Smart watches Smart bracelets Smart rings Smart clothes Smart cards

Applications of wearable devices

Wearable technologies have been mostly applied in the following areas: Entertainment Gaming Industry Personal health and fitness management:

o Activity trackerso GPS monitoringo Devices for fitness management (e.g. improper posture notifications)

Management of disease within healthcare:o Remote management of patient statuso Ongoing updates regarding patient statuso Feedback to patientso Empowers patient to self-manage

Performance enhancement in elite sport:o Sports performance enhancemento Chemical Sensors in Sports

Wearable Technologies and Travel

Wearable Technologies – such as smart watches and heads-up devices like Google Glass – could bring about real step-change in the way businesses market and sell travel, and the way consumers experience it. With technology and gadgets already a critical part of travel, wearable technology is predicted to become the biggest thing since the release of the smart phone. Companies should find ways in order to incorporate wearable technology in the travel industry. The companies should consider why consumers want technology connected to their bodies and how it could augment their lives. The travel industry as stated in different reports is ready to adopt wearable technology in their business cycle. Amadeus which is a leading provider of advanced travel technology solutions, highlights some of features and functionalities of the wearable technology and the opportunities it presents for the travel industry.37 38

Virgin Atlantic is another industry that recognised the opportunities for the travel industry of wearable devices and launched their wearable technology pilot scheme in February 2015. The staff of the company used Google Glass or a Sony SmartWatch2 to greed the company’s passengers arriving at the Upper Class Wing at Heathrow airport. The cutting edge technology 36 http://www.wearabledevices.com/what-is-a-wearable-device/37 http://www.amadeus.com/blog/07/11/virtual-trip-experiences/38 http://www.amadeus.com/blog/21/07/tips-for-leveraging-wearable-technology-in-the-travel-industry/

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was developed in collaboration with the air transport IT specialist SITA. The passengers were greeted by name and the personnel wearing the Google glasses or smart watches was able to start the check in process. Moreover, the personnel was able to provide to the passengers information regarding their flight, as well as regarding the weather and events at their destination. The wearable technology can provide a unique personalized experience to the customers and in future the devices could provide info regarding passengers’ preferences to the staff, in order to enhance passengers' travel experiences, increase efficiency and exceed consumer expectations39. The prototype Google Glass Flight search app is another application developed by the global technology company Sable, which has been showcasing potential uses and applications for wearable devices in travel. As stated in the description of the app, the application can find flights based on a user’s simple voice command: “Ok Glass, find a flight from London Heathrow to the beach in December”. 40

For travel, smartwatches basically become a mini-screen that would perform many of the same functions as a phone. Weather, boarding pass reminders, gate updates, reservation information, QR codes, and all of the related information that fuels a traveler’s trip, would be available right there on the wrist. Directions are also a very useful area for smartwatches. Rather than having to stare down on a phone, travelers can simply use the watch – and a Bluetooth headset – to get the necessary directions. This would also reduce the likelihood of a distraction-related injury or a handset snatching thief. Another implication would be battery life. Theoretically the watch should have a better battery life, and offload some smartphone interactions – thus increasing range of batteries during travels. Based on the Delphi study of the project Guide2Wear: mobile devices for the future traveller41, wearable devices can be used in the following services:

Intermodal routing Car/bike sharing bookings Local navigation Location based services Access to public transport E-ticketing/payment

Based on the same report the smartphones, followed by smartwatches and glasses will be the optimal device for finding intermodal routes in the future.

Virtual journeying

The virtual reality technology has been mostly used in games, but now it seems that the travel industry is exploring how to use this technology as a marketing tool in order to sell more effectively. Virtual travel is in its infancy but it seems that it will become a new form of selling experiences. The travel industry has seen the potential of virtual reality technology, as it can be used as a 3D taste of a destination that will in the end, convince travellers to buy that taste.

Thomas Cook, Qantas Airways, and Destination British Columbia in Canada are some of the companies that are using this technology in their own promotional VR videos.

Thomas Cook, In August 2014, announced a trial pilot in which they placed virtual reality headsets at one of its stores in England that allowed visitors to explore the Sentido Resorts, as

39http://www.digital-trip.com/news-item/the+future+of+wearable+technology+and+the+travel+industry-523.aspx40 https://developer.sabre.com/resources/demo_gallery41 http://www.guide2wear.eu/

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well as virtually experience a flight with Thomas Cook Airlines.42 As stated by the company’s Chief Innovation Officer, Marco Ryan, the company sees the virtual reality technology as an innovation which will change the travel business, moreover he added that "The closer you get to the destination, the more excited you are to have that experience"—i.e., enhance the shopping experience.

Destination British Columbia has just launched The Wild Within VR Experience, using Oculus Rift technology. The Wild Within VR Experience is an interactive video used as a marketing tool in order to promote the destination. The users can experience British Columbia in an interactive way. Marsha Walden, CEO of Destination BC stated that “We think virtual reality is a great fit for tourism marketing. It lets our travel trade and media partners experience our destination in a new and unique way that has not been possible before. And, as the headsets become more widely available to consumers, virtual reality gives them a ‘360’ experience – immersing them in the extraordinary travel opportunities that British Columbia offers, from raw wilderness to refined cities.”43

The idea behind the use of virtual technology in travel is not that it will replace real-world travel. As it seems nobody in the travel industry would be interested in that. As it is stated in the Scyscanner’s Future of travel 2024 report in the future virtual reality headsets will offer travel companies the opportunity to provide virtual ‘try-before-you-buy’ holidays.44

Moreover, virtual reality technology will let travellers explore digitally rendered hotels before booking their stay or get previews of local landmarks before deciding on a holiday location. In 10 years’ time, a traveller will be able to take a virtual reality walk through the hotel he is planning to book in real time, says Nik Gupta, Director of Hotels at Skyscanner. ‘He will be able to watch staff preparing his room as it happens, see the staff in action and watch chefs cooking his favourite food. That will be ground-breaking an incredibly powerful tool for building engagement and trust between the traveller and the brand.45 In this way the traveller will be better informed and he would be able to evaluate the hotel in a more personalized way.

2.2.17 Big data analytics in the travel/transport industry (BMT)

Companies across the various travel and transportation industry segments, such as airlines, airports, railways, freight logistics, hospitality and others, have been handling large amounts of data for years, but until recently have not always had the capability to turn that raw data into insights.

In today's instrumented and interconnected world, unprecedented amounts of data are captured from almost every kind of system or event - and much of it is unstructured data. From passenger name records, transaction history and pricing data to customer feedback surveys, call centre logsand Twitter feeds, travel and transportation companies now have access to a lot of data on all aspects of their business operations and customer interactions.

42 http://www.thomascookgroup.com/12-august-2014-thomas-cook-brings-the-holiday-experience-to-the-high-street-with-industry-first-virtual-reality-trial/43http://www.destinationbc.ca/News/Local/Destination-BC-Creates-The-Wild-Within-VR-Experien.aspx#.Vdb94PnUaPE44 http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/oculus-rift-to-offer-try-before-you-buy-virtual-reality-holidays45 http://www.skyscanner2024.com/part1.php

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At the same time, consumers are becoming smarter shoppers with a variety of choices via various channels - phone, web, kiosk, counter, 3rd party agency, etc. Travellers are becoming more demanding in the quality and variety of services available, as a result of rewards systems or loyalty programmes. The "empowered," or "always connected," consumer has particularly profound implications for the way that the travel and transportation industry manages travellers, requiring new approaches in responding to greater expectations of (for example) being kept informed and able to amend travel plans at short notice.

In order for travel and transportation organizations to capitalize on these and other challenges in the industry, they need ways to collect, manage and analyse a tremendous volume, variety, velocity and veracity of data. Organizations who can tackle the big data challenge will differentiate from competitors, gain market share and increase revenue and profits with innovative new services.

Currently, the travel and transportation industry as a whole is perceived as generally lagging behind other sectors in terms of how data is used, according to a recent IBM Center for Applied Insights study46. According to the study, for example, travel and transportation companies are surprisingly behind in predictive modelling, simulations and next best action modelling – all areas necessary to run operations efficiently and target customers effectively. According to an article47 in Engineering News Record, a survey by a big data analytics company specializing in transportation planning underscored this picture of sluggish adoption of technology and age bias towards the potential of new technology.

This represents a huge opportunity for travel and transportation companies to derive more insights from their data, according to a recent Forbes article48. The article presents some examples of ways in which the travel and transportation industry can create value from big data and analytics are shown below.

For Customer analytics and loyalty marketing, data analytics has the potential to help companies create a comprehensive 360-degree view of the customer, dramatically improving customer interaction at every touch point and across the end-to-end passenger or traveller experience. This enables greater personalization and relevance to increase marketing effectiveness, improve customer service and drive loyalty.

The ability to analyse more historical information with higher frequency — in near real time — allows for more dynamic and smarter pricing actions, optimized capacity planning and effective yield management.

Predictive, proactive and sensor-based analytics can help companies achieve operational efficiencies and improve performance outcomes. By capturing and analysing more complete operational data, big data and analytics can help organizations manage and maintain their assets to improve safety, performance and equipment life. This enables asset optimization to shift from reactive repairs to preventative maintenance. Total cost of asset ownership is reduced, asset life and operational capacity is increased, and on-time performance is improved.

46 Inside the Mind of Generation D: What it means to be data-rich and analytically driven. IBM Center for Applied Insights, 2014.47 Drawing Transportation Planning Inferences From Big Data, by Tom Sawyer. ENR: Engineering News-Record; 9/22/2014, Vol. 273 Issue 8, p148 Why Big Data Means Big Opportunity For The Travel Industry, by Shannon Adelman. – Forbes, 9 July 2015

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The travel and transportation industry is now seeking to emulate other sectors in deriving greater insights from the newly-available and manageable data it now has access to. In an era in which it is possible to predict a new retail trend or customer retention patterns for cellular phones, similar types of analytics are providing insights that can predict flight delays and better understand customer decisions and behaviours. For example, as reported in another recent Forbes article49, IBM is working with Lufthansa on a research project to develop automated systems to learn and interact naturally with airline operators so they can more precisely respond to weather conditions, minimizing the ripple effect of flight disruptions. The goal is a more proactive flight scheduling system to help boost operational efficiency and customer service. It could also help avoid costly downtime, and reduce maintenance and services costs for the airline.

49 Making Summer Air Travel Less Stressful With Big Data and Mobile Technology, by Raimon Christiani. Forbes, 15 July 2015

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3. ITS developments and Success Stories across Europe

3.1 Optitrans (NCSRD)

OPTI-TRANS50 is a multimodal Journey Planner that allows travellers to plan their trip efficiently by making optimal use of public and private transport while taking into account their preference (shortest transport time, minimum cost etc). It also incorporates Dynamic Car Sharing and Taxi-on-Demand options and provides information about traffic congestion, strikes, and points of interests. The OptiTrans mobile GNSS application has been supported by the EU under FP7- Galileo 2007 - GSA Call 1. It is currently available for Athens and Madrid and expanding rapidly to other cities across the Globe.

OPTI-TRANS interfaces with existing database systems providing public transport information (timetables, routes, etc.) to give the most optimal multi-model solutions for the commuters' requirements. It incorporates Transport-on-Demand (ToD) through the Car Pooling services and Passenger-on-the-Curb facilities that allow privately owned vehicles to be shared with others subscribed to the service. The OPTI-TRANS project fully meets the objectives in demonstrating the potential for Location Based Services (LBS) and GNSS technology both to the general public and the public transport authorities

The objectives of the OPTI-TRANS project are as follows: To provide an innovative, multi-modal personal navigation mobile LBS application

which will interface with a core platform providing an optimum combination of use of public transport and carpooling facilities to the commuter.

To develop the highly intuitive OPTI-TRANS platform consisting of the LBAG algorithm which will combine information from various sources (public transport DBs, personal commuter profiles, car-pooling services, etc.) in order to provide optimum routing and co-modal transportation to the commuter/traveller.

To support the status of LBS as a key technology for implementing transport policies with the implementation of the OPTI-TRANS platform and the mobile LBS application which will demonstrate the feasibility of a dynamically updated, location-aware pedestrian and public transport route planning tool.

To endeavour to standardise interfaces to Public Transport Authority databases in order to allow applications such as the OPTI-TRANS solution to be utilised across Europe (and consequently traversing border beyond Europe), thus providing seamless roaming to the users of the OPTI-TRANS solution.

To assess the user requirement, evaluate and determine the adoption of available state-of-the-art technology enablers (LBS services and applications) and derive the technical specifications of the OPTI-TRANS platform while taking into consideration the early study performed on the technical feasibility of the overall system.

To determine the specification of the OPTI-TRANS representative test cases and pilot scenarios, define concrete and measurable validation criteria and to define the architecture specificaiton of the OPTI-TRANS platform and GNSS-enabled mobile LBS application. The user-defined test cases and technological evaluation results will be acquired during the evaluation phase of the project. The participation of the Europe-wide leading players will ensure the importance of the OPTI-TRANS user-defined test cases and demonstrations.

50 http://www.optitrans-fp7.eu/index.php/project

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To conduct market surveys and develop a business model in order to determine the most efficient, funcational and user-acceptable operational model for the system as well as to demonstrate the commercial feasibility of the end product. The business model pertaining to the commercial exploitation of the OPTI-TRANS system will be defined from the perspectives of the various players involved in the concept (network operators, public transport authorities, end users, etc.), and to assess the various socio-economic and ethical apsects that are involved. The OPTI-TRANS concept will be measured and the system's added value will be demonstrated by conducting extended user trials, representative of the user-defined test cases.

To effectively facilitate and encourage the dissemination (i.e. organisation of workshop embracing awareness sessions, presentations, feedback, etc) in order to promote awareness of the OPTI-TRANS solution, and advance exploitation of existing and emerging expertise and practices in the field of Location Based Services, and active participation in workshops, forums, tradeshows, etc.

To build on previous FP6 work, namely to extend the Taxi-on-Demand system developed within the context of the FP6 IST project LIAISON, and to provide the appropriate experience for building this LBS solution to the Mass Market utilising work and findings from the FP6-Galileo project AGILE

3.2 WiseTrip (NCSRD)

WISETRIP51 is an FP7 project that demonstrated an effective way to integrate different Journey Planning engines, covering different geographical areas, to form a unified multi-modal planner for international journeys. WISETRIP has addressed the issue of personalized trip services. The user can configure his personal data and trip preferences before and during the trip though the seven categories of personalization services offered: My preferences, Scheduled notifications, Trip Disturbances Alerts, Trip Segments Validations, Automatic Trip Reschedules, My Reminders and My Bulletin. The main problem faced by WISETRIP is the wide variance in the level and quality of information provided by national journey planning systems ant the fact that the requirements of user groups with population on-growth should be accommodated. Moreover, social media and mobile extensions will increase usability within certain scenarios. European-wide Journey Planning should become attractive to the public as a personal trip assistant, rather than a traditional Journey Planner. Integrated ticketing should become a closer vision practically in place rather than a vision.52 Enhanced WISETRIP aims at building on the knowledge and results achieved within WISETRIP to provide efficient and green planning international multimodal trips.

By now (June 2015) the Enhanced WISETRIP system is currently into pilot operation, as stated under the project’s website. The pilot application is limited to information related to routes within Greece, United Kingdom, Finland, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and China.

3.3 SHIFT2RAIL (INLECOM)The European Commission is working towards the creation of a Single European Railway Area and has promoted a modal shift from road to rail in order to achieve a more competitive and resource-efficient European transport system. However, the share of rail on the European freight and passenger transport markets is still not satisfactory. EU research and innovation 51 http://www.wisetrip-eu.org/52 WISETRIP – International multimodal journey planning and delivery of personalized trip information. Vasssilis Spitadakis, Maria Fostieri. Procedia p Social and Behavioral Sciences 48 (2012). SciVerse Science Direct.

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must therefore help rail play a new, broader role in global transport markets, both by addressing pressing short-term problems that drain rail business operations, and by helping the sector to achieve a stronger market position.

The Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking (S2R JU)53 is a public private partnership in the rail sector, providing a platform for cooperation that intends to drive innovation in the years to come. The S2R JU pursues research and innovation activities in support of the achievement of the Single European Railway Area (SERA) and improve the attractiveness and competitiveness of the European rail system.

SHIFT²RAIL fosters the introduction of better trains to the market (more comfortable, quieter and more reliable, etc.), operating on innovative rail network infrastructure in a reliable way from the first day of service introduction, at a lower life cycle cost, with more capacity to cope with growing passenger and freight mobility demand. All this will be developed by European companies thereby increasing their competitiveness on the global marketplace.

Shift2Rail contributes to: Cutting the life-cycle cost of railway transport (i.e. costs of building, operating,

maintaining and renewing infrastructure and rolling stock) by as much as 50%; Doubling railway capacity; Increasing reliability and punctuality by as much as 50%.

SHIFT²RAIL will impact all segments of the rail market: High Speed/Mainline, Regional, Urban/Metro & Suburban, and Freight and make daily life easier for millions of European passengers and rail freight users.The work conducted within the Shift2Rail framework is structured around five asset-specific Innovation Programmes (IPs), covering all the different structural (technical) and functional (process) sub-systems of the rail system, namely:

IP1: Cost-efficient and Reliable Trains, including high capacity trains and high speed trains;

IP2: Advanced Traffic Management & Control Systems; IP3: Cost-efficient, Sustainable and Reliable High Capacity Infrastructure; IP4: IT Solutions for Attractive Railway Services; IP5: Technologies for Sustainable & Attractive European Freight.

These five Innovation Programmes are not just a simple “package” of programmes that are independent of one another. On the contrary, they form a whole assembly of the railway system, with a number of common cross-cutting themes and the R&I activities of the Joint Undertaking have to be managed in the most efficient way to allow the full coverage of all areas while ensuring a high degree of efficiency in the management of the technical activities.

53 http://www.shift2rail.org/

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Figure 3-10 Shift2Rail – Innovation Programmes

3.4 IT2RAIL (INLECOM)The IT2Rail -“Information Technologies for Shift2Rail” project is a first step towards the long term IP4 -“IT Solutions for Attractive Railway Services”54, one of the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking’s Innovation Programmes, which aims at providing a new seamless travel experience, giving access to a complete multimodal travel offer which connects the first and last mile to long distance journeys. This is achieved through the introduction of a ground breaking Technical Enabler based on two concepts:

The traveler is placed at the heart of innovative solutions, accessing all multimodal travel services (shopping, ticketing, and tracking) through its travel-companion.

An open published framework is providing full interoperability whilst limiting impacts on existing systems, without prerequisites for centralized standardization.

The project is funded under European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme and its main objective is to enable the development of solutions providing a seamless travel experience by giving access to a complete multimodal travel offer, which connects the first and last mile of long distance journeys. IP4’s vision should lead to a dramatic increase in ‘rail attractiveness’, generating sufficient growth in demand to support a major shift to rail, through a seamless travel experience, and a seamless access to all travel services by innovative digital technologies.

IT2Rails looks into a complete door-to-door intermodal journeys encompassing distinct modes of transportation, connecting the first and last mile to long distance journeys combining air, rail, coach and other services. IT2Rail integrates diverse existing and future services for planning, one-stop-shop ticketing and booking transactions, and real-time re-accommodation.Through the introduction of radical new technologies and solutions, the European citizen’s global travel interactions will be transformed into a fully integrated and customised experience.

54 http://www.it2rail.eu/

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It will further render the entire European transportation system a natural extension of citizens work and leisure environments, across all modes, local and long-distance, public and private.

3.5 TAP-TSI (INLECOM)The European Commission has adopted a regulation on standards in the field of telematics applications for rail passenger services (Commission Regulation (EU) No 454/2011 of 5 May 2011 on the technical specification for interoperability relating to the subsystem ‘telematics applications for passenger services’ of the trans-European rail system). These standards, known to the rail sector as "technical specifications for interoperability" (TSI) relate to the subsystem "telematics applications for passengers" (TAP) of the trans-European rail system and define how stakeholders must interact with travel-related data in the field of rail transport.

The main objective of TAP TSI is to facilitate planning, reservations and travelling by train in Europe. It will also strengthen passengers’ protection and enhance informed consumer choice by making it possible for rail companies and ticket vendors to fulfil their obligations under Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 on rail passengers’ rights and obligations.

The standards define how stakeholders must interact with rail travel data. The data exchange covers timetables, tariffs, information on conditions of carriage before and during the journey, as well as other data. Part of the standard is a definition of a standard rail data exchange architecture and definitions of key data content and but also approved standards of exchange with other modes.

The TAP TSI standard is of high importance for the further development of any European multimodal services. The computerised information and reservation systems that will be developed on the basis of these standards will not necessarily supply "integrated tickets", meaning a single ticket for a trip involving more than one transport mode. However, based on these standards, suitable communication systems between rail companies and ticket vendors will be developed, while rail data will be made available to all players, such as rail companies, infrastructure managers and ticket vendors. They will have at their disposal harmonised travel data, which they can use to develop IT tools and applications. For example, the data could be used to book tickets for international rail journeys, plan a European journey crossing national borders, or display the latest information on the internet or in the train itself.

Partners European Commission (DG MOVE) CER: The Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies ECTAA: The European Travel Agents’ and Tour Operator Associations EIM: The European Rail Infrastructure Managers EPF: The European Passengers’ Federation EPTO: The European Passenger Transport Operators ERA: The European Railway Agency ETTSA: The European Technology and Travel Services Association (ETTSA) GEBTA: The Guild of European Business Travel Agents UIC: The International Union of Railways UITP: The international network for public transport authorities and operators, policy

decision-makers, scientific institutes and the public transport supply and service industry

UNIFE: The Association of the European Rail

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TAP TSI prescribes protocols for the data exchange of Timetables, Tariffs, Reservation, Fulfillment etc. Identically, standard information content on timetables, (aside from departure and arrival time) is defined as:

Basic principles of train variants Representation of a train, Different possibilities to represent days of operation, Train category / Service mode. Transport service relationships Coach groups attached to trains, Joining to, splitting from, Through connections (connecting to), Through connections (Service number change). Details of transport services Stops with traffic restrictions, Overnight trains, Time zone crossings, Pricing regime and Reservation details, Information Provider, Reservation Provider, Service Facilities, Accessibility of the train (including scheduled existence of priority seats, wheelchair

spaces, universal sleeping compartments) Service extras, Connecting - Timing between transport services. Station list. This is a reflection of the complexity of rail travel.

Timetable data exchange is based on EDIFACT messages.

3.6 Full Service Model Initiative (FSM) (INLECOM)The Full Service Model55 (FSM) is an initiative by rail industry stakeholders, aiming to develop and implement technical specifications for the interoperability of telematics

applications for passenger services (TAP-TSI) and to fill in potential gaps. The FSM aims to put in place an industry standard for rail data exchange, including door-to-door travel throughout Europe and promote further cooperation between railway operators and ticket vendors.

FSM concentrates on the functional requirements and specifications for an open, interoperable IT framework designed to be used by a wide number of applications. More choice and information for passengers and additional business opportunities for both rail operators and ticket vendors are expected to be the main outcomes of the initiative.

The following organisations have an advisory role to FSM:

55 http://www.cer.be/press/press-releases/press-releases/taking-rail-ticket-distribution-to-the-next-level-railways-and-ticket-vendors-launch-the-full-service-model-initiative/.

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CER: The Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies56 brings together more than 70 European railway undertakings and infrastructure companies. CER represents the interests of its members towards the European institutions as well as other policy makers and transport actors. CER’s main focus is promoting the strengthening of rail as essential to the creation of a sustainable transport system which is efficient, effective and environmentally sound.

ECTAA: The European travel agents’ and tour operators’ associations57 regroups the national associations of travel agents and tour operators of 30 European countries, of which 26 are within the European Union, and represents some 70.000 enterprises.

ETTSA: The European Technology and Travel Services Association58, was established in 2009 to represent and promote the interests of global distribution systems (“GDSs”) and online travel agencies (“OTAs”) towards policy-makers, opinion formers, consumer groups and all other relevant European stakeholders.

Through the involvement of ETTSA (representing GDSs), FSM’s work contributes towards the integration of rail and air travel solutions and the harmonisation of information.

Implementation is carried out in parallel for all process steps including shopping, booking, fulfilment and payment (Figure 2). More specifically, due to the size and scope of the FSM, it was decided to divide the entire traveller process into several Traveller Stages:1. Pre purchase customer information & decision support2. Look – Timetables3. Look – Fares and auto price4. Purchase/Book5. Ticket Fulfilment6. Payment7. Post-purchase customer support8. Pre-journey information (delays, cancellations etc.)9. In-journey customer information & support10. Post-journey Customer support11. Set-up aspects in necessary for TVs and RUs12. Settlement methodology13. Back office activities14. Supplier sales reporting

56 www.cer.be57 www.ectaa.org58 www.ettsa.eu

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Table 8: FSM Working Groups

3.7 European Travellers Club (by the OpenTicketing Initiative) (INLECOM)The European Travellers Club - Account-Based Travelling across the European Union59, is a programme by and for European transport ticketing schemes or operators, travellers organizations and technology providers to create seamless Account-Based Traveling across the European Union, funded under the Horizon 2020 Transport Programme.

The programme is traveller-centric, meaning that the travellers will be in control of their preferences and privacy. While it includes innovative technological concepts, it is expressly designed to work with existing e-ticketing infrastructures in member states (Calypso, VDV, ITSO etc.) as well as new possibilities (such as EMV-contactless, smart tokens etc.). The "eco-system" will be open for all potential suppliers through an open architecture with clear interfaces and standardized protocols. The architecture is such that it allows for a smooth integration with travel planning and booking tools, journey information and integration with other uses of e-identity, e-payment and e-ticketing.

3.8 The BonVoayage Project (INLECOM)The BONVOYAGE project60 (Intermodal mobility solutions, interfaces and applications for people and goods, supported by an innovative communication network) aims at designing, developing and testing a platform optimizing multimodal door-to-door transport of passengers and goods. The platform integrates travel information, planning and ticketing services, by automatically analysing non-real-time data from heterogeneous databases (on road, railway and urban transport systems); real-time measured data (traffic, weather forecasts); user profiles; user feedback.

The platform is supported by an innovative “information-centric” communication network that collects and distributes all the data required. The highly heterogeneous, distributed and mobile nature of data, coming from data-centers, sensors, vehicles, goods and people on the move, calls for an innovative networking paradigm. Current networks limit themselves to “just” providing communication channels between hosts. Our paradigm, called Internames, allows

59 http://www.openticketing.eu/60 http://bonvoyage2020.eu/

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communications among entities identified by names, without the constraint of a static binding to a particular location. The platform integrates travel information, planning and ticketing services, by automatically analysing non-real-time data from heterogeneous databases (on road, railway and urban transport systems); real-time measured data (traffic, weather forecasts); user profiles; user feedback. Implementation will be based on the Publish-Subscribe services model.

3.9 Cooperative Cities (Co-Cities) (INLECOM)Co-Cities61 is a pilot project funded by the EC in the ICT PSP Programme. The project addressed the lack of fast and reliable traffic information for travellers and professional users when on the move in the cities and urban areas. Co-cities provided travellers with traffic information using the Co-cities App, but also it developed a dynamic’ ’feedback loop’’ from mobile users and travellers to the cities’ traffic management centres, giving to end users the opportunity to comment on the received services, but most importantly to submit new information about congestion events or delays. The information provision and feedback loop is based on the Commonly Agreed standardised Interface (CAI), which is a standardized access layer to local data servers and to multimodal traffic data and services. The cities/regions that have already implemented the CAI are Bilbao, Florence, Reading, Munich, Vienna, Oslo, Prague, and Bucharest.

3.10 European Digital Traffic Infrastructure Network for Intelligent Transport Systems (EDITS) (INLECOM)

EDITS62 is an EU co-funded project under the umbrella of the Central Europe (CE) Programme. The purpose of the project was to go beyond the local and regional journey planners and to focus on enabling cross-border multimodal travel information. The project demonstrated an effective way to improve accessibility to interoperable and multimodal Real Time Traffic and Travel Information (RTII) services based on a harmonised platform for data and information exchange. In this way no centralised system was developed, rather existing structures were improved, updated and harmonized. Central part in EDITS was the adoption of a specified EDITS Graph Integration Platform (EDITS-GIP) and commonly agreed EDITS-GIP-Interface to allow the exchange of traffic related information among regions. The EDITS services have been implemented in three demonstration areas, including CENTROPE (Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary), the triangle area between Austria, Italy and Slovenia as well as the Italian bordering provinces of Modena and Ferrara.

3.11 CIVITAS (2MOVE2) (INLECOM)The CIVITAS initiative was launched in 2002 to redefine transport measures and policies in order to create cleaner, better transport in cities.

2Move263 is an EU project under the current CIVITAS PLUS II programme, which aims at improving urban mobility by advancing or creating sustainable, energy-efficient urban transport systems in the participating European cities (Stuttgart, Malaga, Brno, and Tel Aviv – Yafo). More specifically, the project focuses on planning and implementing measures for e-mobility (clean, energy efficient vehicles and integrated transport systems for personal, collective applications), freight and the deployment of ICT and ITS for traffic management (vehicle guidance, accident avoidance, passenger information and travel planning, road pricing and smart payment

61 http://co-cities.eu/62 http://edits-project.eu/63 http://www.civitas.eu/content/2move2

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systems). Linking the proposed measures with the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans and urban development plans is also being emphasized.

The CIVITAS initiative has already made transport more eco-friendly in over 60 European metropolitan areas, including a public transport ticketing system in Tallinn, Estonia, a 100% clean bus fleet in Toulouse, France, waterborne goods transport in Bremen, Germany and a new traffic control system in Bologna, Italy.

3.12 The POSSE Project (Promoting Open Specifications and Standards in Europe) (INLECOM)

The POSSE project64 focused on the facilitation of exchange and sharing of knowledge on how to develop, implement and maintain open specifications and standards for ITS and traffic management. The development of good practice guidelines required for the specification and implementation of open ITS systems and standards took place covering the processes and considerations required. POSSE answered questions regarding Good Practice Guidelines such as where to start in developing a procurement environment based around open specifications and standards, as well as how to deal with a mixed vendor environment. In addition, it provided implementation plans setting out how Transfer Sites should look to implement or further develop Open Specifications and Standards after the project.

3.13 eCOMPASS project (NCSRD)The eCOMPASS project65 introduces new mobility concepts and establishes a methodological framework for route planning optimization following a holistic approach in addressing the environmental impact of urban mobility. eCOMPASS aims at delivering a comprehensive set of tools and services for end users to enable eco-awareness in urban multi-modal transportations. eCOMPASS involves a generic architecture that will consider all types and scenarios of human and goods mobility in urban environments minimizing their corresponding environmental impact. Firstly, the project will focus on the design and development of intelligent on-board and centralized vehicles’ fleet management systems; the fundamental objective of eco-awareness will be addressed through employing intelligent traffic prediction and traffic balancing methods, while also taking into account driving behaviour and considering the option of car drivers transferred to means of public transportation at suitable locations. Secondly, eCOMPASS will develop web and mobile services providing multi-modal public transportation route planning, taking into account contextual information (such as location and time) as well as various restrictions and/or user constraints. Recommended routes will be optimized mainly in terms of the transports’ environmental footprint, although additional objectives will also be considered. An important objective of eCOMPASS is to develop novel algorithmic solutions and deliver the respective services to familiar end-user mobile devices.

3.14 The Transforum project (NCSRD)

TRANSFORuM66 is a research project funded under the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission. The project contributed to the transformation of the European transport system towards more competitiveness and resource-efficiency. In the project key stakeholders were engaged in carefully moderated forum activities and through other consultation measures

64 http://www.posse-openits.eu/65 www.ecompass-project.eu66 http://www.transforum-project.eu

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in order to identify their views about the challenges, barriers, trends, opportunities and win-win potentials in shaping the future European transport system. The TRANSFORuM project contributed to this transformation process, in particular to the implementation of the following four key goals of the Transport White Paper:

Clean Urban Transport and CO2 free city logistics ‐ Shift of road freight to rail and waterborne transport Complete and maintain the European high speed rail network‐ European multimodal information, management and payment system

The project’s key outputs are a set of the following documents, all of which are based on stakeholder input:

Roadmaps show feasible pathways for reaching short‐ to mid‐term goals (to 2030). Their target audience includes companies, technology platforms, research and innovation communities, public sector organisations and the European Commission itself as an important catalyst for action. They provide:

o An analysis of the status quo o descriptions of measures to be taken o timetables with milestones o indicators of progress/success o actors to be involved o required resources and financing schemes o remaining open issues to be solved in further activities.

Recommendations to translate the technical and thematic information of the roadmaps into concrete steps to be taken by policy makers, industry leaders, NGOs and other decision makers.

A detailed strategic outlook with a long-term perspective (2030‐2050). It replicates the structure of the roadmaps but has a “vision” character, illustrating a possible European transport system of 2050.

TRANSFORuM had built-in mechanisms to disseminate these results to a wide audience through attractively produced, freely and conveniently accessible documents, online platforms, internal and external mailing lists, personal contacts, social media, live presentations etc.

3.15 COMPASS (NCSRD)COMPASS67 is a research project funded under the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission. COMPASS will look at the existing information available on passenger journeys in Europe, drawing extensively on work that has been undertaken in previous European-funded projects. Existing sources of information and data will be used to identify and describe the key trends in mobility patterns in the 21st century, based on current and future passenger needs. Existing sources of travel survey data will be exhaustively researched, with a particular focus on the role of ICT in data collection and management, and recommendations will be made on improving data collection in passenger transport to meet future needs.

COMPASS will then identify ICT-based solutions that have the potential to improve co-modality in passenger transport and these potential solutions will be assessed through a number of case

67 http://www.fp7-compass.eu/

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studies. The assessment of ICT solutions for improved co-modality will be based on a framework that emphasises the contribution of each solution to reduced carbon emissions. There will also be an investigation into how best to present solutions for improved co-modality to those stakeholders in transport operations and planning who will be responsible for their implementation, to ensure the best possible take-up of recommended solutions.

The key objectives of the COMPASS project are to:

identify key trends (demographic, societal, economical, policy etc) that will affect mobility now and in the future and thus to identify the mobility needs of current and future travellers

identify the potential role of ICT in promoting co-modality and data collection identify the information that would be needed from data in order properly understand

mobility, to optimise a future co-modal transport system and to assess the impact of new solutions

analyse existing surveys with regard to data available concerning long-distance, rural and urban travel

identify solutions to improving behavioural data (from ICT or elsewhere) and needs and opportunities for harmonisation of the data collected, in particular in the various national surveys (this also includes new definitions of accessibility indicators)

identify and investigate ICT solutions to influence mobility patterns for long-distance, rural and urban travel towards increased co-modality

develop business models that enable and promote these solutions in practice assess the potential impact of the solutions identified both on local and on European

level, in particular with regard to carbon emissions derive conclusions and recommendations for national and EU transport policy and

actions disseminate the findings widely amongst policy makers and other stakeholders as well

as researchers and the transport industry

3.16 ONTIME (NCSRD)The ON-TIME68 was a joint research project funded under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7 2011-2013) of the European Commission. The overall aim of the ON-TIME project is to improve railway customer satisfaction through increased capacity and decreased delays both for passengers and freight. This is achieved through new and enhanced methods, processes and algorithms. The main objectives of the project were:

To improve management of the flow of traffic through bottlenecks to minimise track occupancy times.

To reduce overall delays through improved planning techniques that provide robust and resilient timetables capable of coping with normal statistical variations in operations and minor perturbations.

To reduce overall delays and thus service dependability through improved traffic management techniques that can recover operations following minor perturbations as well as major disturbances.

To improve the traffic flow throughout the entire system by providing effective, real-time information to traffic controllers and drivers, thus enhancing system performance.

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To provide customers of passenger and freight services with reliable and accurate information that is updated as new traffic management decisions are taken, particularly in the event of disruptions.

To improve and move towards the standardisation of the information provided to drivers to allow improved real-time train management on international corridors and system interoperability; whilst also increasing the energy efficiency of railway operations.

To better understand, manage and optimise the dependencies between train paths by considering connections, turn-around, passenger transit, shunting, etc. in order to allocate more appropriate recovery allowances, at the locations they are needed, during timetable generation.

To provide a means of updating and notifying actors of changes to the timetable in a manner and to timescales that allows them to use the information effectively.

To increase overall transport capacity by demonstrating the benefits of integrating, planning and real-time operations, as detailed in Objectives 1-8.

Among the innovation actions of the project the following results were extracted:Under innovation 2: Improved Methods for timetable constructions, the methods developed in the project have been applied to a high-capacity mixed-traffic network around the railway node at Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands including the synchronized corridors Utrecht – Eindhoven and Tilburg - Nijmegen. The ON-TIME timetabling approach was applied to the Dutch case study and the resulting timetable was tested and evaluated using the HERMES simulation tool, showing improvements on all performance indicators.

Under innovation 3: Real-time traffic control algorithms, the algorithm applied for real time traffic management on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) in the UK ECML is the Differential Evolution Junction Rescheduling Model (DEJRM) developed by The University of Birmingham. It optimally reschedules train timings at junctions in the event of minor perturbations.

Under innovation 4: Improved Decision support – Handling major Perturbations. The case study area was an important of the Dutch railway network. The network is bounded by Utrecht Central in the northwest, Tilburg in the southwest, Eindhoven in the southeast and Arnhem in the east. On this network, about 90% of the trains are domestic passenger trains operated by Nederland’s Spoorwegen (NS). In this action the only parameters considered were the following: the timetable, rolling stock and crew schedule of these trains. The disruption scenarios were the i) accident with person near Rosmalen and ii) Signalling problem near Culemborg. The experimental results show that the disruption management module computes feasible resource schedules in a couple of minutes. Such solution times are acceptable in practice. This shows that the iterative algorithm can be applied in a practical setting for the disruption management process.

Under innovation 5: ON-TIME proposes a standard for the communication between IMs and RUs in CGTO systems (see chapter 4.4.4.2) which has been validated. The project has also delivered a demo-implementation of CGTO including this standardized interface. Since all of the particular functions of the designed CGTO system have been validated, the project team is strongly convinced that the CGTO based on this standardized interface can be used in the future. Nevertheless, the goal to evaluate the whole CGTO system in closed loop could finally not be achieved within ON-TIME and should therefore be addressed in future projects. Once the missing links in the closed loop are filled the KPIs as defined in WP1 could be used to evaluate the impact of CGTO on energy efficiency as well as punctuality/ journey time.

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Under innovation 6: Process and information architecture. The actual ON-TIME Architecture was a collection of .NET components, and it was based on three modules: a subscription service, a data provider, a security layer and a dashboard. Tests simulated 10 clients with a number of parallel requests, ranging from 1000 to 10000 each. The tests certified the ability of the architecture to receive about 3500 messages per node per second. The average size of the messages was approximately 5 KB. The architecture revealed fairly good scalability: adding nodes proportionally improves the ability to handle more messages.

3.17 Instant Mobility (BMT)http://instant-mobility.com/Instant Mobility69 (Multimodality for people and goods in urban areas) was part of the FI -PPP initiative, co-funded by the European Commission 7th Framework Programme (FP7-2011-ICT-FI).

The project set out to pave the way for the mobility revolution, through five main steps:-

Create and analyse a set of innovative Future Internet-based “lead scenarios” and constituent services corresponding to the needs of five key stakeholder groups: multimodal travellers car drivers and passengers public and other collective transport operators truck fleet operators and the distribution industry road operators and traffic managers

Define and specify essential “enablers”, i.e. generic and transport-specific technologies and components needed to support the Instant Mobility services

Integrate the enabler specifications into a conceptual prototype demonstrating a simplified Transport and Mobility Internet and some scenario services as examples

Investigate key societal issues for potential Instant Mobility deployment, including security and privacy, acceptability, business models, etc.

Dialogue with stakeholders in potential candidate cities for deployment, creating a plan for a network of pilot implementation sites in the next stage of the Future Internet - Public Private Partnership (FI-PPP)

In the Instant Mobility vision, every journey and every transport movement is part of a fully connected and self-optimising ecosystem. Whatever the traveller's situation (office, home, on-trip…) Instant Mobility will deliver useful Future Internet enabled information and services.

The traveller will receive personalised and real-time solutions to support him reaching his destination according to current personal preferences and constraints, real-time traffic status and public transport availability along his journey. These real time-solutions will be proactively updated during the traveller journey based on his effective progression.

Local authorities, public transport operators and professional drivers will all benefit from the open information platform that Instant Mobility will provide to publish information regarding

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immediate and near future mobility requests as well as effective availability and location of all means of transportation. This will allow new ways to optimize urban traffic while enhancing safety and privacy of the travellers and promoting car sharing and car-pooling on a new scale.

3.18 All Ways Travelling (BMT)http://www.allwaystravelling.eu/documents.aspxAccording to the White Paper on transport policy from 2011, the multimodal travel system will be a core element of future sustainable passenger transport. The European Commission has addressed this subject by several studies and legal acts elaborating on the desirable attributes and certain issues of a multimodal travel system and their consequent benefits for the traveller.

Against this background, DG MOVE had been seeking external expertise “to develop and validate a European passenger transport information and booking interface across transport modes”, and the consortium “All Ways Travelling” (AWT) was selected to advise the European Commission on this topic via a service contract.

The consortium delivered a study70 on the framework conditions for a European passenger transport information and booking interface across transport modes – Multi-Modal Information and Ticketing Systems (MMITS) - which gave insights into the prerequisites for the possible future development of information and booking systems, and presented a set of recommendations for future action of the European Commission.

The study concluded that the establishment of a well-functioning marketplace for MMITS will significantly contribute to achieving the ambitions of the White Paper on Transport. Comprehensive and unbiased MMITS that provide location-independent search, booking, payment, and trip entitlement issuance, are highly likely to be attractive for users, in turn providing an attractive marketing and sales channels for travel providers.

The key drivers of MMITS were identified as:

Industry collaboration through initiatives such as FSM and Shift2Rail IP4 Further deregulation of the rail sector in the EU EU intervention to support industry initiatives and innovation programmes like

Shift2Rail EU regulations to ensure non-discriminatory access to travel information Clarification of multimodal conditions of carriage and passenger rights in a multimodal

journey Improvement of the physical connectivity and infrastructure to facilitate connections

and transfers between transport modes, increasing the number of available and attractive travel options

Availability and development of technologies that enable the establishment of MMITS solutions with reasonable investment levels, including new search and mobile internet technologies.

Key Findings of the study were:-

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Three kinds of information have to be availability for planning a journey via MMITS: Schedules, fares, and availability. Furthermore, real time information is necessary during the journey.

Comprehensive and unbiased information is necessary for MMITS to be attractive Information provision is only feasible for commercial carriers if no sensitive data is

published. Therefore, schedule information may be published as raw data while dynamic information, like yield-managed pricing, may be accessed via API access.

Information provision and distribution (selling tickets through intermediaries) are very different, and should be regarded separately.

3.19 1st Smart Mobility Challenge (BMT)

The 1st Smart Mobility Challenge (2011-2012) was organised to raise awareness of the broad public and different stakeholders about multimodal journey planning. In response to the Challenge, 22 submissions of journey planners were received, out of which 12 were shortlisted to be put to the vote by the public71.

The winners of the challenge were:

Byebyehello Journey planner combines planning the trip (according to time, budget, environment preferences), booking and paying with one click. It uses a distributed approach with A* routing algorithm (Penelope Ventures GmbH)

Mytripset is a vision of a journey planner that wants to move from a classic functional tool to an open and intuitive service available on all devices. (SNCF)

The right architecture for a European multimodal journey planner is a distributed system with standardized API (Application Programming Interface). (CHAPS spol. s r. o.)

Le Frecce journey planner that will be launched in 2012-2013 will be a four-layer abstraction model with layer-specific interoperability protocol. (Trenitalia)

One-sentence descriptions of all 22 innovative ideas on how to develop a European multimodal journey planner can be found at the above link for the challenge.

3.20 Opticities (BMT)OPTICITIES72 is a 3-year project and will be running from 1 November 2013 to 31 October 2016. In the face of the challenges faced by cities, such as accessibility, concerns over the environment and quality of life, and the management of public spaces, OPTICITIES is developing a vision of optimised urban mobility at the focal point of user needs, urban mobility, public policy, and business models of service providers.

OPTICITIES is developing a collaborative approach between public and private stakeholders. In this vision European cities consolidate all mobility data available at local level and provide it to service operators through a standardised gateway.

The key assets of this approach are:

71 http://ec.europa.eu/transport/its/multimodal-planners/index_en.htm72 http://www.opticities.com

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A geographical and modal urban mobility data completeness thus reinforcing services’ quality

Deploying truly multimodal services, supporting the diversity of services’ offer, sustaining high value services

Ensuring coherency between user-oriented services and urban mobility public policies

OPTICITIES aims to associate major cities, groups and SMEs at the forefront in these fields in Europe to develop:

Genuine multimodal solutions. For once ITS solutions will not be a juxtaposition of mono-modal approaches exclusively focused on public transport. Multimodal solutions will be based on reliable data for every mode and combination, with optimised end-user HMI, and will involve the car industry as well as public transport and soft mode actors.

A contractual framework on data access and exchange policy allowing enlarged access to high quality data. This policy aims at amplifying the development of information services by centralising (or accessing local databases) and disseminating all private and public data available at the scale of the conurbation, in line with urban mobility public policies.

European interoperability of urban mobility data and mobility solutions. Based on an open ITS system, the standards developed in OPTICITIES will provide cost effective and seamless multimodal services.

Enhance network operators’ supervision capacity and management efficiency thus allowing for smart and adapted decision making processes.

Develop, try out and assess high-level innovative multimodal information and transport management services. These services will target transport managers, travellers and freight transport users or fleet managers.

Enhance users’ accessibility to mobility services through the display of coherent and highly reliable multimodal information.

OPTICITIES aims to achieve these objectives through the following major breakthroughs in terms of innovation:

New monitoring devices and sources : data collection through users, new means for urban freight data collection, real-time road works data collection, multimodal real time data collection;

Building of a standardised Urban mobility dataset and access portal: definition of a European standard for the Multimodal Urban Dataset and its interfaces between public authorities and service providers; development of a contractual architecture between private and public actors for data access, data exchange and service provision.

Developing innovative services for multimodal and predictive management of urban networks: optimisation of urban networks exploitation through the development of traffic prediction tools and their integration into traffic management systems; integrated multimodal management allowing better allocation of means to support mobility demand.

Developing innovative services for end-users ensuring service continuity between vehicles and smartphones: deployment of multimodal urban navigator on smartphones in the partner cities; service continuity between in-vehicle navigation system and the multimodal urban navigator.

Developing innovative services for urban logistic: urban freight navigator; tools for urban freight management.

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3.21 NODES (BMT)New Tools for Design and Operation of Urban Transport Interchanges (NODES)73 is a three-year research European project, focusing on the efficient integration of public transport services.

For the past three years, NODES has been developing a Toolbox to allow practitioners (public authorities, public transport operators, infrastructure managers…) to assess their public transport interchanges and to improve their performance. As interchanges play a key role in the integration of the urban mobility system and in enabling good intermodal solutions, their efficiency is essential to achieving sustainable transport objectives.

The main outcomes of the project are:-

Measuring the performance of a transport interchange

The first steps of the project consisted of defining the future user needs and system requirements. Key performance indicators have been identified to enable practitioners to better understand the performance of their transport interchange. These indicators were worked on in order to develop the so called “NODES Benchmark tool” which will be unveiled at the project’s final conference. With this online tool, the practitioners just have to enter the main figures of their interchange and answer specific questions to be provided with a performance evaluation of their interchange.

Improving performance thanks to the NODES Toolbox

Once a practitioner obtains the strong and weak points of his interchange, they are pointed towards the NODES Toolbox, a list of tools (software, methods, techniques, models, regulations, materials) that will allow them to improve its performance.

The indicators as well as the tools cover the five key areas related to transport interchanges:

Strategies for integrated land use planning with urban passenger infrastructure planning Innovative approaches relating to the design of efficient transport interchanges Intermodal operations and information provision Management and business models (the interchange as a business case for the local

economy and itself) Energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly interchanges

In order to validate the efficiency of the tools that were identified, they were tested in nine reference sites distributed around Europe.

3.22 INTERCONNECT (BMT)The INTERCONNECT (Interconnection between Short and Long-Distance Transport Networks) project74 ran from June 2009 to May 2011. It examined the role of local and regional interconnections in the context of longer distance passenger journeys in Europe, in order to

73 http://www.nodes-interchanges.eu/74 http://www.interconnect-project.eu/

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address the potential for greater economic efficiency and reduced environmental impact. Factors investigated in the project include integration, co-operation and, where appropriate, competition in the provision of local connections across all transport modes.

Effective interconnection between trip legs is a necessary feature of a growing proportion of passenger journeys, particularly of those which contribute most to regional and national economies. Such effective interconnection requires the provision of integrated networks and services which are attractive to potential users and this is likely to require co-operation between a range of authorities and providers in the public and private sectors and may necessitate a wider vision than might otherwise prevail.

INTERCONNECT addressed the potential for greater efficiency and reduced environmental impact of passenger transport through encouragement of integration, co-operation and, where appropriate, competition in the provision of these local and regional connections.

INTERCONNECT focused, in particular, on those journeys that might benefit from more effective interconnections between different transport modes and services, and on those journeys where effective interconnection is currently hampered by institutional barriers, lack of investment, or failure to innovate. By identifying examples of good practice from Europe and elsewhere, INTERCONNECT has shown how local and regional transport interconnections could benefit from a more enlightened approach.

The range and applicability of specified solutions that were tested in the project case studies took into account legal and institutional issues and made use of policy measures like integrated pricing, and ticketing, improved links and interchanges, infrastructure pricing, strategic planning, information and marketing.

While promoting take-up of organisational, administrative and technical best practice and coordination among policy makers, INTERCONNECT also made a contribution to the wider use of analytical tools that are appropriate to this field at both European and local level.

3.23 i-TOUR (BMT)The I-TOUR (Intelligent Transport system for Optimized URban trips)75 project, which ran from February 2010 – January 2013, was designed to promote the use of public transport by encouraging sustainable travel choices and by providing rewarding mechanisms for users choosing public travel options.

The objective of I-TOUR was to develop an open framework to be used by different providers, authorities and citizens to provide intelligent multi-modal mobility services. I-TOUR aimed to support and suggest (in a user-friendly way) the use of different forms of transport: bus, car, rail road, tram, etc..., taking user preferences into account, as well as real-time information on road conditions, weather and public transport network conditions.

The main project objectives are grouped below in five high-level goals:

Development of a reliable and secure data collection approach capable to benefit both from measures of real-time conditions on public transport load and from information

75 http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/93951_en.html

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provided by the citizens. For this reason, a trust-based mechanism would be developed to ensure reliability of the uploaded content and accuracy of the consumed content, ensuring at the same time the highest level of privacy.

Development of a modular infrastructure based on standard open technologies that can be adopted by public transport providers to expose harmonised transport-related services.

Development of a personalised multi-modal transport information system capable of providing user-tailored travel choices and capable to learn incrementally from the users' preferences.

Development of a user-friendly travel information system, promoting sustainable travel choices based on multi-modal public transport.

An additional goal of I-TOUR was the identification of new business models based on real-time personalised LBS (Localisation Based Services) of interest for urban travellers.

The project promoted a user friendly reliable travel information system for optimal multi-modal passenger trips based on novel data collection techniques capable to promote and award sustainable travel choices. I-TOUR predicated an approach whereby citizens can benefit from a wide range of Location Based Services. These are based on the widespread availability low-cost portable localisation technologies, including GPS and forthcoming GALILEO services, as well as on the ubiquitous availability of wireless network connections (e.g. UMTS, Wi-Fi) at the urban and rural level. This vision is in line within the priorities set by the EU ICT for Mobility Strategic Research Agenda which advocates the use of info-mobility service, including pre-trip, on-trip and post-trip information.

3.24 Linked Data Benchmark Council (LDBC) (STI)

3.25 LOD2 (STI)http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/95562_en.html

3.26 Linked Data for Cultural and Touristic domains (LDCT) (STI)

3.27 On-demand Data-driven Production of Touristic Service Packages (TourPack) (STI)

3.28 Viajeo (STI)http://www.viajeo.eu/

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4. Technology Assessment – EuTravel Focus (INLECOM)

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5. EuTravel Knowledge Base and Observatory (EBOS)

5.1 EuTravel Observatory System – User View

This section provides general information on the system of the EuTravel Observatory Knowledge Admin side from the user point of view. The system is a web based system and accessible from anywhere. It is built on the EuTravel Knowledge Platform utilising the .NET Framework and powered by the SQL Database engine.

5.1.1 How to login

In order to login you have to click on the link provided in the email sent to you with your registration, or type in the address bar of your browser http://www.eskema.eu/skemaknowledgeadmin/eLogin.aspx and the page shown in figure 5.1 will open. Type the login information that was sent to you by email when you make your registration and click login button. You have the option to select a different language if you wish.

5.1.2 Main

Page

At the top is the navigation menu where you can make a choice to display the data in the middle of the screen. In the middle of the Welcome screen there are the most important quick links that the user can select and navigate to. At the very top right on the main page there is the option to change your password or log off from the system (figure 5.2).

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Figure 5.1: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Login Page

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5.1.3

Dropdown Lists

In various pages you will see a dropdown list (figure 5.3) that allows you to select an object from the list.

The first button allows the addition of a new object in the list. The second button allows the user to edit the selected object from the list. The third button allows only the projection of the selected object from the list. The buttons provide access depending on the user’s level.

5.1.4 Upload Files

In various pages you will see the buttons in figure 5.4. These buttons allow you to upload or download a file.

Figure 5.5 shows the popup window that will open when you click on the upload button. Click on the select button and choose the file that you want to upload on the site. Finally click on the upload button and wait for the file to be uploaded on the server.

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Figure 5.2: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Main Page

Figure 5.3: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Dropdown List

Figure 5.4: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Upload and Download file buttons

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The same applies to the View Button. Once you have clicked the View button you will be able to download and view the file.

5.1.5 Navigation Tree

By clicking on the top menu, under menu item “Index”, you select the link Navigate Tree. Figure 5.6 shows the Navigate Tree page.

Here you can see a navigation tree that is assigned to the EuTravel Portal. The first level is the Subject Categories. The second level is the Subject Area. The third level is the Subject Topic. The fourth level is the Subject Info. Registered members have access to add or edit only

at the third and fourth level.

When you click on a node from the third and fourth level, the left Toolbar (figure 5.7) will appear with the buttons that will allow you to edit the selected Subject Topic or add Subject Info related to this topic.

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Figure 5.5: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Upload File Popup

Figure 5.6: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Navigate Tree

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In

figure 5.8 you can see the Subject Info form. Here you can write all the information you want to be displayed on the EuTravel Observatory Portal.

Fields Explanation: Subject Area/Subject Topic: These fields will be added automatically proportionally by

the tree choice. However you can choose another if you wish. Title: This is the title of the Subject Info.

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Figure 5.8: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Subject Info Form

Figure 5.7: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Navigate Tree Actions

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Author: The name of the Subject Info author. Overview: In this text editor you can write the overview of the Subject Info that will be

displayed in the centre of the EuTravel Observatory Portal. Study Filename: Here you can upload the file of the Subject Info that will be available

on the website for download as show. URL: In this field you can write a website URL that has more information about this

subject info.

At the left of the Subject Info form, as shown in figure 5.8, you can see the tabs with all the related subjects. In order to add any related “subjects”, click on the tab and then on the Add new record. These subjects exist on the right side of the EuTravel Observatory Portal.

Tabs explanation: Subject Info Comments: Here are the comments that users can add from the website

link. Subject Articles: Here you can add all the related documents of the Subject Info. Subject Policies: Here you can add all the related subjects from the Policy Directory. Subject Stakeholders: Here you can add all the related stakeholders of the Subject Info. Subject Projects: Here you can add all the related subjects from the Projects Directory. Expert Info: Here you can add all the related Experts of the Subject Info. Subject Events: Here you can add all the related Events of the Subject Info. Subject News: Here you can add all the news related to the Subject Info. Subject Glossary: Here you can add the glossary related to the Subject Info. Subject Journals: Here you can add the journals related to the Subject Info. Subject Info Sources: Here you can add all the related Information Sources of the

Subject Info.

5.1.6 Glossary Terms

In figure 5.9 you can see the Glossary Terms form. Here you can add the term, its definition and the Wikipedia link.

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Figure 5.9: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Glossary Terms Form

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Also, you can add comments, or see the comments that users add from the website as illustrated in figure 5.10.

5.1.7 Events

Here you have to write the event name, date and the details of the Event. Also you can write the URL where the user can find some more information. There is also the option to upload a file name together with the event details (figure 5.11).

5.1.8 Journals

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Figure 5.10: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Glossary Comments

Figure 5.11: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Events Forms

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Here you can write the name, description and the URL of the Journal. Also you can choose whether you want the journal to be visible or not, and in which order you want them to be displayed (Figure 5.12).

5.1.9 Experts

Here you can suggest an Expert including his/her contact details along with the category that is specialised. An email will be sent to admin to check if the information you have provided is correct (figure 5.13).

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Figure 5.12: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Journals

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5.2 EuTravel Observatory System – Admin View

This section provides general information on the system of the EuTravel Observatory Knowledge Admin side from the Admin point of view. The system is a web based system and accessible from anywhere. It is built on the EuTravel Knowledge Platform utilising the .NET Framework and powered by the SQL Database engine.

5.2.1 How to login

In order to login to the EuTravel Observatory System you have to type in the address bar of your browser http://www.eskema.eu/skemaknowledgeadmin/eLogin.aspx and the page shown in figure 5.14 will open. Type the login information that was sent to you by the super admin. You have the option to select a different language if you wish.

5.2.2 Main

Page

At the top is the navigation menu where you can make a choice to display the data in the middle of the screen. In the middle of the Welcome screen there are the most important quick links that the user can select and navigate to. At the very top right on the main page there is the option to change your password or log off from the system (figure 5.15).

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Figure 5.14: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Login Page

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5.2.3 Dropdown Lists

In various pages you will see a dropdown list (figure 5.16) that allows you to select an object from the list.

The first button allows the addition of a new object in the list. The second button allows the user to edit the selected object from the list. The third button allows only the projection of the selected object from the list. The buttons provide access depending on the user’s level.

5.2.4 Upload Files

In various pages you will see the buttons in figure 5.17. These buttons allow you to upload or download a file.

Figure 5.18 shows the popup window that will open when you click on the upload button. Click on the select button and choose the file that you want to upload on the site. Finally click on the upload button and wait for the file to be uploaded on the server.

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Figure 5.16: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Dropdown List

Figure 5.17: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Upload and Download file buttons

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The same applies to the View Button. Once you have clicked the View button you will be able to download and view the file.

5.2.5 Modules

By clicking on the top menu, under Menu item “Modules”, you can find the “Portal Module” link. This page displays a list of modules assigned to this portal as shown in figure 5.20.

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Figure 5.18: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Upload File Popup

Figure 5.20: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Portal Modules

Figure 5.19: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Edit Module

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By selecting one of the modules and clicking on the “Edit Record” on the left hand side you have the option to change the information entered for that module as illustrated in figure 5.19.

Fields Explanation: Name: This is the name of the module. Description: Here you can add the description of the module that will be displayed on

the EuTravel Portal as shown in the figure 5.21. Position, Column: Here you can specify the position of the module on the Portal Object: From this field you can select in which category this module belongs Level: Here you can write all the Subject Area levels that belong to this module, and

they will appear on the EuTravel Portal as show in figure 5.21. Has Childs: Select this field if there are children under this module. Visible: Select this field if you want to be displayed on the EuTravel Portal. Web Role: Select this field if you want to give specific permissions to specific roles.

5.2.6 Templates

By clicking on the top menu, under Menu item “Modules”, you can find the “Templates” link. This page displays a list of templates assigned to this portal as shown in figure 5.22. The purpose of these templates is that it gives the flexibility to the admin to change the look and feel of different sections of the portal easily.

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Figure 5.21: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Module on EuTravel Portal

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By selecting one of the templates and clicking on the “Edit Record” on the left hand side you have the option to change the information entered for that template as illustrated in figure 5.23.

Fields Explanation: Type: The name of the template. Template: Here you can make the design of the template that will show on the

EuTravel portal.

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Figure 5.22: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Portal Templates

Figure 5.23: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Templates' Form

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5.2.7 Navigate Tree

By clicking on the top menu, under menu item “Index”, you select the link Navigate Tree. Figure 5.24 shows the Navigate tree page. Here you can see a navigation tree that is assigned to the EuTravel Portal.

The first level is the Subject Categories. The second level is the Subject Area. The third level is the Subject Topic. The fourth level is the Subject Info. Registered members have access to add or edit only

at the third and fourth level.

When you click on a node from the third and fourth level, the left Toolbar (figure 5.25) will appear with the buttons that will allow you to edit the selected Subject Topic or add Subject Info related to this topic.

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Figure 5.24: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Navigate Tree

Figure 5.25: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Navigate Tree Actions

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In figure 5.26 you can see the Subject Info form. Here you can write all the information you want to be displayed on the EuTravel Observatory Portal.

Fields Explanation: Subject Area/Subject Topic: These fields will be added automatically depending on the

tree choice. However you can choose another if you wish. Title: This is the title of the Subject Info. Author: The name of the Subject Info author. Overview: In this text editor you can write the overview of the Subject Info that will be

displayed in the centre of the EuTravel Observatory Portal. Study Filename: Here you can upload the file of the Subject Info that will be available

on the website for download. URL: In this field you can write a website URL that has more information about this

subject info.

At the left of the Subject Info form, as shown in figure 5.26, you can see the tabs with all the related subjects. In order to add any related subject, click on the tab and then on the Add new record. These subjects exist on the right side of the EuTravel Observatory Portal.

Tabs explanation: Subject Info Comments: Here are the comments that users can add from the website

link. Subject Articles: Here you can add all the related documents of the Subject Info. Subject Policies: Here you can add all the related subjects from the Policy Directory. Subject Stakeholders: Here you can add all the related stakeholders of the Subject Info. Subject Projects: Here you can add all the related subjects from the Projects Directory. Expert Info: Here you can add all the related Experts of the Subject Info.

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Figure 5.26: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Subject Info Form

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Subject Events: Here you can add all the related Events of the Subject Info. Subject News: Here you can add all the news related to the Subject Info. Subject Glossary: Here you can add the glossary related to the Subject Info. Subject Journals: Here you can add the journals related to the Subject Info. Subject Info Sources: Here you can add all the related Information Sources of the

Subject Info.

5.2.8 Subject Categories

By clicking on the top menu, under Menu item “Index”, you can find the “Subject Categories” link. This page displays a list the Subject Categories assigned to this portal as shown in figure

5.27.Figure 5.27: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Subject Categories

By selecting one of the subject categories and clicking on the “Edit Record” on the left hand side you have the option to change the information entered for that category as illustrated in figure 5.28.

Fields Explanation: Index No: Here you can write the Index level of the Category. Name: Here you can write the name of the Subject Category.

On the left hand side of the Subject Category form you can see the Subject Areas link. By clicking this link you will be redirected to the Subject Areas of this Subject Category. In figure 5.29 you can see the Subject Areas.

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Figure 5.28: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Edit Subject Category

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By selecting one of the subject areas and clicking on the “Edit Record” on the left hand side you have the option to change the information entered for that Area as illustrated in figure 5.30.

Fields Explanation: Subject Category: This field will be added automatically proportionally by the tree

choice. However you can choose another if you wish. Index No: Here you can write the Index level of the Subject Area. Level: This is the Index No of the Subject Category. You can add the level together with

the index no to the Modules form in the field level. Name: The name of the Subject Area. Position: The position of the Subject Area on the EuTravel Portal. Visible: Select this if you want the Subject Area to be displayed on the EuTravel portal.

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Figure 5.29: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Subject Areas

Figure 5.30: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Edit Subject Areas

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The same way, on the left hand side of the Subject Area form you can see the Subject Topics and Subject Info links. By clicking on these links you will be redirected to the respective screenshots as shown in figures 5.31 and 5.32 respectively.

Figure 5.31: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Subject Topics

Figure 5.32: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Subject Info

By selecting one of the subject topics and clicking on the “Edit Record” on the left hand side you have the option to change the information entered for that Topic as illustrated in figure 5.33.

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Figure 5.33: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Edit Subject Topic

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Fields Explanation: Subject Area: This field will be added automatically proportionally by the tree choice.

However you can choose another if you wish. Index No: Here you can write the Index level of the Subject Topic. Level: This is the Index No of the Subject Area. Name: The name of the Subject Topic. Position: The position of the Subject Topic on the EuTravel Portal. Visible: Select this if you want the Subject Topic to be displayed on the EuTravel Portal.

5.2.9 Glossary Terms

In figure 5.34 you can see the Glossary Terms form. Here you can add the term, its definition and the Wikipedia link.

Also you can add comments, or see the comments that users add from the website as illustrated in figure 5.35.

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Figure 5.34: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Glossary Terms Form

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5.2.10 Events

Here you have to write the event name, date and the details of the Event. Also you can write the URL where the user can find some more information. There is also the option to upload a filename together with the event details (figure 5.36).

5.2.11 Journals

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Figure 5.35: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Glossary Comments

Figure 5.36: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Events Form

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Here you can write the name, description and the URL of the Journal. Also you can choose whether you want the journal to be visible or not, and in which order you want them to be displayed (figure 5.37).

5.2.12 Experts

Here you can suggest an Expert including his/her contact details along with the category that is specialised. An email will be sent to the admin to check if the information you have provided is correct (figure 5.38).

5.2.13 Registrations

Last but not least, in figure 5.39 you can see the registrations form. Here you can add the personal information of the members. Also you can edit, view or delete the members that have been registered from the EuTravel portal registration form and to add new Subject Info.

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Figure 5.37: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Journals

Figure 5.38: EuTravel Observatory Admin - Experts

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5.3 EuTravel Observatory – Public Site

This section of the report describes in detail the EuTravel Observatory Knowledge Portal. This portal has been designed taking into consideration the colour and themes of the EuTravel Project website. The technology engine is powered by the EuTravel knowledge based Platform which has been developed as part of the EuTravel Project. All the contents relating to the EuTravel Project are listed under Annex 1. The EuTravel Observatory is constantly being updated on a weekly basis.

5.3.1 Welcome Page

Figure 5.40 illustrates the EuTravel Observatory Welcome Page. The welcome page contains all modules/topics that are available for the EuTravel Portal. These modules can be customised according to user requirements.

86Figure 5.40: EuTravel Observatory - Welcome Page

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5.3.1.1 Customised homepage

The user can choose the modules they prefer to be displayed on the EuTravel welcome page. When you click on the link “Customised Homepage” the list of all the modules is shown. Unselect the modules you want to remove from the front page and then click the “Save” button in order to save your changes. The “Reset Default” button clears the changes that the user made and rearranges the EuTravel welcome page to the original form. Figure 5.41 shows the customised homepage.

5.3.1.2 Edit Modules

The user can select and display from each module only the areas that interest him. When the user clicks on the “Edit” button, next to the title, the list of the related areas appears. Unselect the areas you want to remove from the front page and then click “Save” button in order to save your changes. Figure 5.42 shows the list of the areas.

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Figure 5.41: EuTravel Observatory - Customised Homepage

Figure 5.42: EuTravel Observatory - Edit Modules

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5.3.1.3 Add/Remove topics

Under each area there are a number of topics. The user can increase or decrease the number of the topics they want to be shown on the welcome page by clicking on the icons. Figure 5.43 shows how to increase and decrease the number of topics to be displayed for each area.

5.3.1.4 Drag and Drop Modules

Another feature of the EuTravel Observatory Portal is that the user can also change the position of the modules. You can click on the title of a module and drag it to any position you want on the Portal. Figure 5.44 shows how the “Travel Regulatory Framework” module, before moves and figure 5.45 after moves from the left column of the page to the right column.

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Figure 5.43: EuTravel Observatory - Add/Remove Topics

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Figure 5.44: EuTravel Observatory - Drag and Drop Modules (before)

Figure 5.45: EuTravel Observatory - Drag and Drop Modules (after)

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When the user makes some changes on the appearance of the page these changes will be saved automatically and the next time the user visits the EuTravel Observatory Portal from the same computer these changes will apply.

5.3.2 Subject Info Page

When the user clicks on a specific area topic, a new page with all the information will open. In figure 5.46 you can see how the subject info page looks.

5.3.2.1 Overview of the subject info

On the centre of the page (figure 5.46) there is an overview about the selected subject. On the right hand side of the overview, there are some related links that are relevant to the Subject Info page. For example there are “Subject News”, “Linked Topics”, “Related Documents”, “Lessons Learned”, “Information Source”, “Related Projects”, “Related Policies” and “Related Products”. Furthermore, at the bottom of the Overview page (see figure 5.47), the users have

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Figure 5.46: EuTravel Observatory – Subject Info webpage (a)

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the ability to write comments for the article and read comments from other users. Under the overview there is a glossary term section.The Subject Info page has been designed in such a way in order that all relevant information will be on one page with easy navigation and reading of all relevant information. Under the overview and the glossary terms there is some additional information for the selected topic

5.3.2.2 EuTravel Index Tree

The navigation tree always appears on the left side of the page (figure 5.48) with the EuTravel Index information. There is a four level tree with all the subject categories, topics and articles of the EuTravel Observatory portal. By clicking on one of the tree nodes, the user will be automatically redirected to the selected subject information webpage. This tree helps the user to navigate to other subject categories that are part of the same Subject Area.

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Figure 5.47: EuTravel Observatory – Subject Info webpage (b)

Figure 5.48: EuTravel Observatory - EuTravel Index Tree

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5.3.2.3 Related Subjects

On the right side of the page there is a column with subjects related to the topic in the middle of the page. On the top there is news linked to the related subject and below there are two linked topics. There are also some related documents, lessons learned and information sources for reading in more depth about the specific subject. On the bottom there are also the related projects, and policies.

5.3.2.4 Access to Restricted Modules

In order for the users to have access to restricted modules on the Portal, they need to. Click at the Login button at the top of the Portal (see figure 3.3.3) in order to open the login page.

After the pop up Login page appears figure 3.3.4, user will enter the username and password (received by email) and click on the Login button. Now the user will be able to view more modules that are only available to registered members.

5.3.2.5 Advanced Search

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Figure 5.50: EuTravel Observatory - Login Form

Figure 5.49: EuTravel Observatory - Login Button

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Another important functionality of the EuTravel Observatory Portal is the ability of the users to easily search all the above information using an advanced search component. For the purpose of the example, the keyword “security” is entered into the box above and the button “go” is clicked. Once it is clicked, the search results appear as illustrated in figure 3.5.2. The results are categories by type of information i.e. document, news, events etc. The user has the ability to filter the results by selecting the filtering options above the results page.

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Figure 5.51: EuTravel Observatory - Search Results

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6. Appendix A

The tables below show APIs classified under the five different themes. For each API its name and URL pointing to more information about it is listed. A short description about the API is also provided, based on what is provided by Programmable Web. However this description is not comprehensive or necessarily accurate and the only rigorous way to verify the API is by visiting the provider’s web site and accessing the more accurate and up to date information regarding it. Finally, APIs are listed alphabetically, and no relative importance/significance or chronological order is assumed about the APIs in the lists.

Service Aggregation APIsAllmyles Dlse.

bohttp://www.allmyles.com

.v.e. lopers can use the Allmyles API to integrate services for oking flights, hotels and car rental.

Avinode Market Th

http://www.avinode.com/chmarkap

e Avinode Marketplace APIs allow developers to use air arter information to create search engines, design unique

etplaces, and attract more business to their sites orplications

CAVAL CAVAL is an initiative for developing open standards for data

Htttp://caval.travelinteroperability in the travel and tourism industry.

Cleartrip Hotel It supports booking for flights, hotels and trains, as well asother travel services across the world. The Cleartrip Hotel APIprovides developers access to the hotel search and bookings.

CostaClick CostaClick is the portal for travel agents provided by Costa

http://www.costacruise.com/Cruises, a booking service for cruises around the world

Cyrus Recharge Travel Portal API The Cyrus Recharge Travel Portal API allows developers to http://www.cyrusrecharge.com integrate methods for real time booking of buses, flights, cabs,

and more into their own websites and applications.

FlitWays With FlitWays API, travel suppliers such as Airline, Hotels, Car

https://flitways.comRentals, Cruises, Travel Consolidators, Aggregators

mTrip mTrip develops mobile solutions for the travel industry. The mTrip API can be used by tour operators, travel agencies, and

http://business.mtrip.com/ their partners to sync client-side data.

Rezdy new Rezdy is an online booking and reservation platform. Users can http://hotelscombined.com accept reservations and bookings online through their

websites with Rezdy featureSilverRail Journey Planner Jeppesen provide charts, maps and planning solutions for

aviation, marine and rail operators. The Jeppesen JourneyPlanner API lets developers integrate public transit informationinto their own.

TourCMS Marketplace TourCMS provides a full website and reservation management

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http://www.tourcms.com system for small and medium sized tour operatorshttp://www.travelconnectivity.co m The Travel Connectivity XML API solution enables 3rd party

developers to utilize existing TC products and deliver them in Travel IQ http://travel-iq.com Travel IQ is an online travel booking service. The Travel IQ API offers developers programmatic access to the functionality of http://www.topscripts4you.com The Travel Portal API provides programmatic access to functions that allow customers to book hotels, flights, cars, http://www.travelfusion.com/ The Travelfusion Direct Connect XML API allows authorised travel partners direct and easy access content from more than http://www.travelisense.com/ The service provides unified access travel information from a distributed partner network of separate systems specializing Travelport http://www.travelport.com/ Travelport Universal API is the global distribution system (GDS) industry’s first truly universal API, giving you access to a http://www.triptelligent.com/ Triptelligent is a shore excursion marketplace for travelers on cruise ships. Cruise guests are connected with tour operators, http://www.valuecommerce.com The Travel API allows users to aggregate airfare, hotel and tour data from top merchants in Japan.Waynaut http://waynaut.com/en/ Waynaut API provides a RESTful JSON interface to implement mapping features around EuropeYahoo Travel

http://developer.yahoo.com/trave l/From their site: Yahoo! Travel is also launching API access to trip planner data through a REST-like interface.Zilyo Vacation Rental https://zilyo.com/ Zilyo is an online company that provides travelers a way to find places to stay from around the world. The Zilyo Vacation

Single Service Provider APIs

http://www.bestparking.com/ parking data (garages and lots open to the public)

British Airways

www.ba.com

British Airways (BA) is a full service global airline with an extensive global route network based out of the United Kingdom. British Airways offers developers a REST API

Click A Taxi clickataxi.com

The service provides automated ordering of taxi service in 5000 European and North American cities.

EAN Cancel Reservation http://developer.ean.com/

The EAN Cancel Reservation API allows developers to integrate the Expedia database into their applications, enabling their users to cancel an existing reservation for a single room.

EAN Hotel List http://developer.ean.com/

EAN Hotel List API allows developers to integrate the Expedia hotel list database into their applications, enabling their users to search for hotels by location or by hotel id

EAN Itinerary Request www.expedia.com

The EAN Itinerary Request API allows developers to integrate the Expedia database into their applications

EasyToBook http://www.easytobook.com/

Easytobook provides hotel bookings for more than 120,000 hotels in over 9,000 cities

Expedia

(www.expedia.com)

Expedia EAN Developer Hub gives developers free access to a set of APIs that power websites, mobile apps, and more.

Google Maps Roads https://developers.google.com

The Google Maps Roads API allows developers to identify the roads a vehicle was traveling along and provides additional metadata about those roads, such as speed limit

Google QPX Express http://www.google.com

The Google QPX Express API allows developers to access information on global airline pricing and availability

Instamanager http://www.instamanager.com/

Instamanager is a cloud-based vacation rental software provided by Bookt.

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SITA Boarding Pass http://www.sita.aero/

SITA's 2D Boarding Pass API creates and delivers an IATA and TSA standard compliant 2D boarding pass image based on information and boarding pass delivery

TripAuthority http://tripauthority.com/hotel.as mx

XML API from Alliance Reservations Network for hotel availability, rate details, bookings, and cancellations.

Uber https://www.uber.com/

Using the Uber API, developers can integrate Uber taxi booking service into 3rd party applications.

WuBook Wired http://wubook.net/

WuBook is an online booking service allowing hotels to support online booking and sync Internet Distribution Services

Travel related Information APIs

AwardWallet http://awardwallet.com/

API for a service that lets users manage their reward balances and travel itineraries.

Bing Traffic www.bing.com

The Bing Traffic API provides information about traffic incidents and issues, such as construction sites and traffic congestion.

CicerOOs Semantic Graph http://www.ciceroos.it

CicerOOs is an Italian travel search engine and virtual tour guide. CicerOOs exposes its service through the CicerOOs Semantic Graph API

Currency Converter API Providerhttp://www.currencyconv ertapi.com

The Currency Converter API allows users to get exchange rates between over 60 currencies with just 1 line of code.

Findery https://findery.com

Findery is a destination discovery application

Hotwire Rental Car Shopping http://hotwire.com

The Rental Car Shopping API delivers data describing rental car shopping results similar to those that can be obtained when shopping for rental car rates on Hotwire.com

Lodgix Vacation Rental http://www.lodgix.com

The Lodgix Vacation Rental API allows users to access the booking calendars, availability data, property images, marketing copy, and amenities and rate information for the properties

MarineTraffic API http://www.marinetraffic.com/

MarineTraffic provides data on millions of daily vessel positions, which users may integrate with their applications or websites using the RESTful API.

MonitorHotels Rate Shopping Data https://monitorhotels.com/

The MonitorHotels Rate Shopping Data API provides users all the data used for displaying charts on this site and much more

Mountain News http://www.mountainnews.com/h ome.html

Provides information about activities useful for winter sports enthusiasts and vacation travel planners. API methods support specification of a location or region to receive listings of ski resorts...

Outpost.Travel Publichttp://outpost.travel/

Outpost.Travel helps users find affordable vacation rentals, rideshares, and local activities all around the world

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PilotOutlook http://pilotoutlook.com

This API provides geo-coordinates, city, state, epoch, runway and other information for about 40,000 airports

Planyo http://www.planyo.com

Planyo is a flexible online booking system for resources such as hotels, holiday apartments, yacht rentals, driving schools, tennis courts, doctor appointments, events etc

Qalendra Predictions https://qalendra.com

Qalendra Predictions API provides long-range predictions for travel and hospitality.

RestFul Web Services Airport http://www.restfulwebservices.ne

The RestFul Web Services Airport API allows users to retrieve detailed information about a given airport code

sletoh.com Compare 70,000 hotels from 15 hotel websites including http://www.sletoh.com Hotels.com, HotelClub and ebookers. One search on

sletoH.com shows hotel prices from across the web.StressFreeAirportParking Provides a parking price comparison service and other travel http://www.stressfreeairportparki related parking services across England and Europeng.com

Time and Date Holidays Supports event organization, cultural purposes and travel http://www.timeanddate.com/ plans. In the site, partners can find a total of 89 countries with

2979 holidaysTixik The Tixik.com API lets users rethttp://tixik.com places around the world.

rieve information about famous

to.uri.st Use the to.uri.st API to access tourist information data from to.uri.st. to.uri.st is about finding those local attractions you never knew existed

Toprural Toprural is a rural accommodation search engine built to http://www.toprural.co.uk/ promote rural tourism throughout Europe. The Toprural API

provides users with GET requests for accommodation listings information,

Wcities It provides guides, information http://corporate.wcities.com/ travel destinations around the

lets users query the site data

and local events for cities and globe. Wcities offers an API that

Wi-Flight http://www.wi-flight.net The Wi-Flight API allows users to access bulk data from flights,integrate a dispatch and reservation system to Wi-Flight

Yapta Provides information to travellers that assures they get the best value from their travel spending. The APIs enable

http://www.yapta.com/ applications to track pricing on specific flights offered from hundreds of airlines.

Zailoo Rideshare Companion Zailoo's Rideshare Companion http://www.zailoo.com compare price and time estima

API provides users the ability to tes for ridesharing services

Zoombu Fly XML flight search API for all countries worldwide, with coverage of hundreds of airlines

http://zoombu.co.uk

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Travel Itinerary planning APIs

SITA iTravel http://www.sita.aero/

This is an API for a web service that provides developer access to air travel shopping, booking, check-in, loyalty, baggage tracking, and flight and airline information.

FlightCaster http://www.flightcaster.com

FlightCaster predicts flight delays, often hours before the airlines.

Flightwise

http://flightwise.com/

Flightwise's Flight Data API and PlaneXML allow developers to pull near real-time flight tracking

FlightAware http://flightaware.com

Using the FlightXML API, programs can query the FlightAware live flight information and historical datasets.

ExpertFlyer http://www.ExpertFlyer.com

The ExpertFlyer API provides access to real time flight data. 3 API's groups are available

Airport Transfer Worldwide http://www.taxi2order.com/

It allows users to avoid long waits at airports or having to travel on public transit

FlightView http://corporate.flightview.com/

FlightView's API includes dozens of attributes to describe the status and location of more than 130,000 commercial and general aviation flights every day around the world

Flight Routing API https://www.mashape.com/laiell o/flight-routin

Flight Routing is an API hosted by Mashape. It lets users get flight routing options, currently covering European and US airspace

HitchHiker Flight http://www.hitchhiker.net

.the Flight API as a basis to create your own travel booking platforms for travel agencies or end-consumers.

TripIt

http://www.tripit.com

API allows users to access the TripIt's information about travel and itineraries

Flextrip

http://www.flextrip.com

Flextrip offers APIs which allow online travel companies to create and catalyze financial opportunities through a wide and diverse selection of tours and activitie

Airport Transfers http://www.airportransfers.gr

Transfers API is a tool for developers representing travel agencies, companies, and websites affiliated with tourism services

Rome2rio Rome2rio is an API to discover travel itineraries from all around

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http://www.rome2rio.com/ the world.

i2space http://www.i2space.com

I2space technologies is a travel portal platform that provides the i2space API which allows users to facilitate Bus Booking

Rutamina http://en.rutamina.com

The Rutamina API provides data from a database of routes, so any application can get, search and display routes on maps.Rutamina is a community focused on walking routes, cycling,

ViaMichelin http://viamichelin.com

The ViaMichelin APIs provide users with access to high quality maps, car and pedestrian itineraries, proximity and integrated booking search engine.

Waze http://www.waze.com/

Waze is a social mobile application providing free turn-by-turn navigation based on the live conditions of the road.

INFOBUShttp://www.infobus.eu

INFOBUS is an online booking company that lets its customers to browse and book bus, train, or flight tickets to their destinations.

INRIXhttp://www.inrix.com/

Provides mapping of road systems with congestion reports to estimate travel times and suggest the quickest routes

Route4me http://www.route4me.com

The service is designed to reduce travel time, save on vehicle expense. The Route4me API allows users to plan a route, view routes, check the distance

aboutPLACE http://www.urban4m.com/

The aboutPLACE RESTful API allows developers to integrate place-based data into interactive maps.

BagJourney http://www.sita.aero/

SITA BagJourney API presents passengers the option to track baggage in real time using mobile devices

Hotwire Hotel Shopping http://hotwire.com

The Hotel Shopping API delivers data describing hotel shopping results similar to those that can be obtained when shopping for hotel rates on Hotwire.com

CTA Bus Tracker http://www.transitchicago.com

The CTA Bus Tracker API provides a gateway into near-real-time CTA bus locations and estimated arrival times.

Travel Collaboration APIs

NileGuide http://www.nileguide.com

NileGuide API makes most of their original travel content to make relevant suggestions that make for more rewarding travel experiences.

TripSay http://www.tripsay.com/

TripSay is a travel website where users share their trips and connect with traveling friends to exchange insider tips

Add To Trip https://addtotrip.co

The Add to Trip API lets users manage a social travel network including user creation/authentication, social notifications, geolocation searches, trip itineraries,…

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Unofficial Free Waze https://www.mashape.com/best api/free-waze-route-calculation

It is offered to developers interested in implementation of travel, mapping, and social apps.

Myallocator.com http://www.myallocator.com

Allows users to update their accommodations and information on many online travel sites. The Myallocator.com API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Myallocator.com.

Pocket Village http://www.pocketvillage.com/

It offers a platform for users to search and compare travel experiences, activities and tours

HotelsCombined http://hotelscombined.com

No public API documentation is available for this API, but access to documentation is available when you register to the affiliate program (free)

eTravelSmart etravelsmart.com

Use this API to manage all aspects of online bus reservation in India.

G Adventures http://www.gadventures.com/

G Adventures provides small group tours around the globe with a focus on delivering authentic adventures in a responsible and sustainable manner

DealAngel http://www.dealangel.com

DealAngel is a hotel rate search engine. DealAngel allows users to search for hotels by location, retrieving pricing and reservation information for booking hotel

hubermedia eTourist http://hubermedia.de/

Hubermedia is a website for facilitating the exchange of information useful to tourists and the tourism industry. eTourist is one of hubermedia's services

3.0 Trippin' in http://www.trippinin.com

It provides attraction recommendations via API.

My Trails www.mytrails.com.au

My Trails offers users four API choices. The Location Based Search API returns information on shared trails and markers for latitude/longitude inputs from the My Trails database.

7. References

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