A Service-Oriented Approach to Crowdsensing for Accessible Smart Mobility Scenarios

This work presents an architecture to help designing and deploying smart mobility applications. The proposed solution builds on the experience already matured by the authors in different fields: crowdsourcing and sensing done by users to gather data related to urban barriers and facilities, computation of personalized paths for users with special needs, and integration of open data provided by bus companies to identify the actual accessibility features and estimate the real arrival time of vehicles at stops. In terms of functionality, the first "monolithic" prototype fulfilled the goal of composing the aforementioned pieces of information to support citizens with reduced mobility (users with disabilities and/or elderly people) in their urban movements. In this paper, we describe a service-oriented architecture that exploits the microservices orchestration paradigm to enable the creation of new services and to make the management of the various data sources easier and more effective. The proposed platform exposes standardized interfaces to access data, implements common services to manage metadata associated with them, such as trustworthiness and provenance, and provides an orchestration language to create complex services, naturally mapping their internal workflow to code. The manuscript demonstrates the effectiveness of the approach by means of some case studies

Participatory Sensing and Crowdsourcing in Urban Environment

With an increasing number of people who live in cities, urban mobility becomes one of the most important research fields in the so-called smart city environments. Urban mobility can be defined as the ability of people to move around the city, living and interacting with the space. For these reasons, urban accessibility represents a primary factor to keep into account for social inclusion and for the effective exercise of citizenship. In this thesis, we researched how to use crowdsourcing and participative sensing to effectively and efficiently collect data about aPOIs (accessible Point Of Interests) with the aim of obtaining an updated, trusted and completed accessible map of the urban environment. The data gathered in such a way, was integrated with data retrieved from external open dataset and used in computing personalized accessible urban paths. In order to deeply investigate the issues related to this research, we designed and prototyped mPASS, a context-aware and location-based accessible way-finding system

The Application of Geographic Information Systems to Support Wayfinding for People with Visual Impairments or Blindness

People with visual impairments or legal blindness are relying on differing, comprehensive information utilized for their individual mobility. Increasing the personal mobility of people with disabilities and thereby achieving a self-determined life are major steps toward a more inclusive society. Research and applications on mobility issues of people with visual impairments or blindness mainly focus on technical applications or assistive orientation and navigation devices, and less work is covering the individual needs, e.g., regarding the information required for wayfinding. Moreover, active participation of people with disabilities in research and development is still limited. ways2see offers a new online application to support individual mobility in context of pre-trip planning for people with visual impairments or blindness based on a Geographic Information System (GIS). Obstacles, barriers, landmarks, orientation hints, and directions for wayfinding are generated by user profiles. The underlying network for GIS analysis is designed as pedestrian network. This individually coded network approach integrates sidewalks and different types of crossings and implements various orientation and navigation attributes. ways2see integrates three research realms: firstly, implementing a participative and transdisciplinary research design; secondly, integrating personalized information aligned with the individual user needs; and thirdly, presenting result of GIS analysis through an accessible designed user interface

A framework to support the tourist’s information-needs based on a ubiquitous approach

Nowadays, tourists are increasingly thirsty for information on anything that surrounds him. With the Information Communication Technologies (ICT) evolution that supports the ubiquity, it is necessary to rethink the available models of information and services to tourists. With the evolution of mobile devices, with wireless access, together with the decreasing of the network traffic costs and with the increasing number of access points of wireless access, becomes more common and attractive. Therefore, in this paper we present an analysis of the state of the art of the support applications for tourists for mobile environments, setting them according to the development technologies. In addition, it is also presented a suitable framework to support the tourist’s needs based on a ubiquitous approach

A Service-Oriented Approach to Crowdsensing for Accessible Smart Mobility Scenarios

This work presents an architecture to help designing and deploying smart mobility applications. The proposed solution builds on the experience already matured by the authors in different fields: crowdsourcing and sensing done by users to gather data related to urban barriers and facilities, computation of personalized paths for users with special needs, and integration of open data provided by bus companies to identify the actual accessibility features and estimate the real arrival time of vehicles at stops. In terms of functionality, the first “monolithic” prototype fulfilled the goal of composing the aforementioned pieces of information to support citizens with reduced mobility (users with disabilities and/or elderly people) in their urban movements. In this paper, we describe a service-oriented architecture that exploits the microservices orchestration paradigm to enable the creation of new services and to make the management of the various data sources easier and more effective. The proposed platform exposes standardized interfaces to access data, implements common services to manage metadata associated with them, such as trustworthiness and provenance, and provides an orchestration language to create complex services, naturally mapping their internal workflow to code. The manuscript demonstrates the effectiveness of the approach by means of some case studies

Inclusive Landmark based Pedestrian Wayfinding via Multi-modal Directions

Navigational skills are fundamental to travelling from place to place, personal independence and community integration [2]. Current research in pedestrian wayfinding suggests that people vary significantly in their choice of navigation modalities [6, 7, 25]. In addition, pedestrians with learning disabilities find it difficult to recall routes travelled daily and stay oriented while enroute to unknown locations. This paper proposes a wayfinding interface that has 2 components: 1) temporary poly-coated cardboard signage along with imprinted information indicating a specific destination, minutes by foot, directional arrow and a QR code; 2) online interactive website to provide additional contextualized navigation instructions for pedestrians through various modalities. The University of Toronto Scarborough campus (UTSC) is being used as the physical environment to implement and test the proposed wayfinding interface. The QR code tags link the cardboard signage to the online interface and generate streaming of route instructions in the modes of panoramic video, photographs, aerial map, audio or text. The goal of the proposed wayfinding system is to aid UTSC pedestrians - especially those with learning disabilities - to orient themselves and navigate to their destination through multi-modal landmark-based, turn-by-turn directions

Multimodal Route Planning Algorithm for Encouraging the Usage of Different Means of Public Transportation

Jätkuv linnastumine ja linnade kasv muudab ka linnasisese teekonna planeerimise aina keerulisemaks.. Tihti pole võimalik reisida ühest punktist teise, kasutades ainult üht transpordiliiki. Veelgi enam, juhul, kui kasutajal on spetsiifilisi eelistusi, nagu soov võtta ühistransporti kaasa ratastool, lapsevanker või jalgratas, kindlat tüüpi ühistranspordivahendi kasutamine (näiteks ratastoolisõbralik buss) on tarvilik. Sellest olenemata kalduvad olemasolevad teekonnaplaneerimise mootorid suurel määral eelistama esimest suvalist tüüpi ühistranspordi reisi, kui see vastab aegruumilistele nõudmistele, selle asemel, et kinni pidada kasutaja poolt valitud ühistranspordi liikidest. Käesoleva lõputöö eesmärk on pakkuda välja alternatiivne meetod multimodaalseks teekonnaplaneerimiseks, mis kasutaks ainult neid ühistranspordiliike, mis on kasutaja poolt lubatud. Selles lõputöös on alternatiivne kiireima multimodaalse teekonna leidmise meetod, mis kasutab ühistransporti, on arendatud. See on võimeline pakkuma konkurentsivõimelisi alternatiive olemasolevate teekonnaleidmise otsingumootorite poolt pakutud lahendustele, samal ajal kasutades vaid neid ühistranspordiliike, mis on kasutaja poolt lubatud.The ongoing urbanization and the growth of the cities is leading to the increase of complexity of the route planning in urban areas. Often it is not possible or feasible to travel from one location to another using only one mode of transportation. Moreover, in case of specific preferences like taking a wheelchair, baby carriage or a bicycle in the mean of public transport, a specific type of mean of transport (e.g. wheelchair-accessible bus) is needed. However, the existing routing engines tend to heavily prefer the first public transport trip of any mean of public transport that meets the spatiotemporal conditions instead of sticking to user’s selected modes.The aim of this thesis is to propose an alternative method for multimodal route planning, using only the modes and means of public transport that are allowed by the user. In this thesis work an alternative method for multimodal fastest pathfinding with use of public transportation is developed. It is able to propose competitive alternatives to the results of the existing routing engines at the same time using only the modes and means of public transport that are allowed by the user

Smart Signs: Showing the way in Smart Surroundings

This paper presents a context-aware guidance and messaging system for large buildings and surrounding venues. Smart Signs are a new type of electronic door- and way-sign based on wireless sensor networks. Smart Signs present in-situ personalized guidance and messages, are ubiquitous, and easy to understand. They combine the easiness of use of traditional static signs with the flexibility and reactiveness of navigation systems. The Smart Signs system uses context information such as user’s mobility limitations, the weather, and possible emergency situations to improve guidance and messaging. Minimal infrastructure requirements and a simple deployment tool make it feasible to easily deploy a Smart Signs system on demand. An important design issue of the Smart Signs system is privacy: the system secures communication links, does not track users, allow almost complete anonymous use, and prevent the system to be used as a tool for spying on users