A prototype of mobile application for geographical data crowdsourcing in urban environments

Vytvoriť spoľahlivý navigačný systém je komplexné zadanie, ktoré so sebou prináša nové výzvy, ak tento systém vytvárame špeciálne pre ľudí s obmedzenou schopnosťou pohybu. Ľudia s obmedzenou mobilitou majú omnoho vyššie nároky na informácie o dostupnosti trás. Pre navigáciu potrebujú podrobnú znalosť existujúcich orientačných bodov, prekážok a vlastností peších komunikácii. Riešením je použiť profesionálne vytvorenú geodatabázu, avšak profesionálny výskum v teréne je príliš časovo a finančne náročný. Jedným z návrhov ako tieto dáta získať je geo-crowdsourcing ako alternatíva k profesionálnemu zberu dát. V tejto práci prezentujeme výsledky výskumu zameraného na návrh užívateľského rozhrania mobilnej aplikácie pre zber informácii o dostupnosti peších komunikácii. Tento zber bude prevádzaný širokou verejnosťou, čím znížime čas a náklady, ktoré sú potrebné pre zber dát prevádzaný profesionálmi. Výsledky prevádzaného výskumu naznačujú aplikovateľnosť tohto prístupu do praxe, ak užívateľom poskytneme správne vedenie v podobe podrobných inštrukcii a ilustračných obrázkov, ak užívatelia použijú odporúčané meracie techniky a ich úsilie je podporované a odmeňované gamifikovanou vrstvou aplikácie.To create reliable navigation system is a complex task but creating one for people impaired in mobility brings even more challenges. People impaired in mobility have much higher requirements regarding information about accessibility. Detailed knowledge about the presence of existing landmarks, obstacles and properties of pavement segments are needed. Usage of professionally created sidewalk-based geodatabase is a solution, however, the professional geographical onsite reconnaissance is highly time and cost demanding. One of the proposal is to achieve this data mining by geo-crowdsourcing approach as an alternative to professional reconnaissance. In this thesis, we report on results of the research focused on designing the user interface of mobile application for collecting accessibility attributes by non-expert crowd which will reduce time and cost of the professional data collection. The research results suggest the feasibility of this approach when the users are provided with a proper guidance, i.e., detailed instructions and illustrative images, use suggested measuring techniques, and their effort is supported and rewarded by gamified layer

Enrichment of OpenStreetMap data completeness with sidewalk geometries using data mining techniques

Tailored routing and navigation services utilized by wheelchair users require certain information about sidewalk geometries and their attributes to execute efficiently. Except some minor regions/cities, such detailed information is not present in current versions of crowdsourced mapping databases including OpenStreetMap. CAP4Access European project aimed to use (and enrich) OpenStreetMap for making it fit to the purpose of wheelchair routing. In this respect, this study presents a modified methodology based on data mining techniques for constructing sidewalk geometries using multiple GPS traces collected by wheelchair users during an urban travel experiment. The derived sidewalk geometries can be used to enrich OpenStreetMap to support wheelchair routing. The proposed method was applied to a case study in Heidelberg, Germany. The constructed sidewalk geometries were compared to an official reference dataset ("ground truth dataset"). The case study shows that the constructed sidewalk network overlays with 96% of the official reference dataset. Furthermore, in terms of positional accuracy, a low Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) value (0.93 m) is achieved. The article presents our discussion on the results as well as the conclusion and future research directions

Mobile app for collecting data about objects placed on the city pavements

Motivace této bakalářské práce je vytvoření mobilní aplikace pro všechny platformy s cílem poskytnout lepší data pro navigaci pohybově a zrakově postižených lidí za pomoci široké veřejnosti. Nejdřív jsou definovány základní pojmy a principy týkající se sběru dat veřejností a následně jsou analyzovány požadavky pro danou aplikaci. Následně jsou analyzovány technologie pro vývoj aplikací za použití nástroje Flutter, kde Redux a Firebase jsou zvoleny hlavními nástroji. Poté je mobilní aplikace implementována na základě dostupného grafického návrhu. Nakonec byla funkčnost aplikace ověřena softwarovými a uživatelskými testy.The motivation for this thesis was the creation of a cross-platform application to provide data for better navigation of visually and movement impaired people with the help of crowdsourcing. In the beginning, core principles and problems are defined concerning geographical data crowdsourcing, followed by a system design analysis. Later, technologies used in Flutter framework are discussed and analyzed with Redux and Firebase being the chosen approaches. The mobile application is then implemented using provided designs. In the end, the application is verified with software tests and user-testing

An Inventory and Assessment of Street Amenities and Vacant Lots in Downtown Lewiston, Maine: Defining Potential to Create a Healthier Neighborhood

Street amenities are publicly available resources, physical or biological, that have an aesthetic, functional, and/or ecological value (i.e. street trees, benches, traffic calming measures and community gardens). Healthy Neighborhoods (HN) is an organization working to improve the quality of life for residents of downtown Lewiston, Maine, USA through community engagement in increasing the number of street amenities and improving the local housing stock. With their work, HN hopes to encourage more people to get outside, improving health outcomes, and to foster greater cross-cultural community building and an enhanced sense of place. These goals of HN create a value system of which they plan to create a model corridor (a street of one or two blocks in length that demonstrates the values of HN) as a stimulus for increased equitable revitalization of this area with street amenities, improvements to housing, and development of vacant lots. This project created an ArcGIS inventory of the street amenities that exist in a section of downtown Lewiston as outlined by HN. From this inventory, a scoring index was created as a tool to compare streets by their amenities and other factors. A brief assessment of vacant lots was conducted to evaluate the potential for future development by HN. A promotional brochure for HN that included maps was created. After creation of the ArcGIS maps, it was found that trees greatly outnumbered the other various amenities that were collected and assessed. A significant variation in sidewalk smoothness was discovered, with vacant lots more commonly found in places where the sidewalk was bumpy, unleveled, or had multiple flaws. Community gardens and open access green spaces have a non-uniform distribution within the neighborhood and the amount of each was limited. High amenity density by block was found where the sidewalk was smoother, although there were outliers. The highest model corridor block score was a 2.7 (with a maximum of 4 for a score) with the lowest score being a 0.4, which shows that no block is perfect in its current condition. The distribution of the composite scores was rather uniform, but it was noted that blocks with similar scores have different amenities and characteristics. The index demonstrates that there are multiple paths to obtaining a higher model corridor score. Vacant lots were assessed for potential development and the top three lots for future development, based on population density, distance from open access green space, and unit price per acre were: 111 Pine Street, 114 Bartlett Street, and 94 Howe Street. Lewiston has immense potential for development and community engagement in this field, and this study has outlined visually where resources can be most effectively used. For future projects, it is suggested that Healthy Neighborhoods continues with their plan of engaging the neighborhood in their work (possibly using the brochure created), complete a more thorough evaluation of vacant lots and analyze more innovative possibilities for redevelopment, and to consider the impact of adding small commercial space into the neighborhood

Geomatics for Mobility Management. A comprehensive database model for Mobility Management

In urban and metropolitan context, Traffic Operations Centres (TOCs) use technologies as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) to tackling urban mobility issue. Usually in TOCs, various isolated systems are maintained in parallel (stored in different databases), and data comes from different sources: a challenge in transport management is to transfer disparate data into a unified data management system that preserves access to legacy data, allowing multi-thematic analysis. This need of integration between systems is important for a wise policy decisions. This study aims to design a comprehensive and general spatial data model that could allow the integration and visualization of traffic components and measures. The activity is focused on the case study of 5T Agency in Turin, a TOC that manages traffic regulation, public transit fleets and information to users, in the metropolitan area of Turin and Piedmont Region. In particular, the agency has set up during years a wide system of ITS technologies that acquires continuously measures and traffic information, which are used to deploy information services to citizens and public administrations. However, the spatial nature of these data is not fully considered in the daily operational activity, with the result of difficulties in information integration. Indeed the agency lacks of a complete GIS that includes all the management information in an organized spatial and “horizontal” vision. The main research question concerns the integration of different kind of data in a unique GIS spatial data model. Spatial data interoperability is critical and particularly challenging because geographic data definition in legacy database can vary widely: different data format and standards, data inconsistencies, different spatial and temporal granularities, different methods and enforcing rules that relates measures, events and physical infrastructures. The idea is not to replace the existing implemented and efficient system, but to built-up on these systems a GIS that overpass the different software and DBMS platforms and that can demonstrate how a spatial and horizontal vision in tackling urban mobility issues may be useful for policy and strategies decisions. The modelling activity take reference from a transport standards review and results in database general schema, which can be reused by other TOCs in their activities, helping the integration and coordination between different TOCs. The final output of the research is an ArcGIS geodatabase, tailored on 5T data requirements, which enable the customised representation of private traffic elements and measures. Specific custom scripts have been developed to allow the extraction and the temporal aggregation of traffic measures and events. The solution proposed allows the reuse of data and measures for custom purposes, without the need to deeply know the entire ITS environment system. In addition, The proposed ArcGIS geodatabase solution is optimised for limited power-computing environment. A case study has been deepened in order to evaluate the suitability of the database: a confrontation between damages, detected by Emergency Mapping Services (EMS), and Traffic Message Channel traffic events, has been conducted, evaluating the utility of 5T historical information of traffic events of the Piedmont floods of November 2016 for EMS services

Improving accessibility for pederstrians with geographic information

Osajulkaisut: Publication 1: Mari Laakso, Tapani Sarjakoski, and L. Tiina Sarjakoski. 2011. Improving accessibility information in pedestrian maps and databases. Cartographica, volume 46, number 2, pages 101-108. University of Toronto. DOI:10.3138/carto.46.2.101 Publication 2: L. Tiina Sarjakoski, Pyry Kettunen, Hanna-Marika Flink, Mari Laakso, Mikko Rönneberg, and Tapani Sarjakoski. 2012. Analysis of verbal route descriptions and landmarks for hiking. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, volume 16, number 8, pages 1001-1011. DOI:10.1007/s00779-011-0460-7 Publication 3: Mari Laakso, Tapani Sarjakoski, Lassi Lehto, and L. Tiina Sarjakoski. 2013. An information model for pedestrian routing and navigation databases supporting universal accessibility. Cartographica, volume 48, number 2, pages 89-99. University of Toronto. DOI:10.3138/carto.48.2.1837 Publication 4: Mari Laakso and L. Tiina Sarjakoski. 2010. Sonic maps for hiking—Use of sound in enhancing the map use experience. The Cartographic Journal, volume 47, number 4, pages 300-307. DOI:10.1179/000870410X12911298276237 Publication 5: Mari Laakso, Hanna-Marika Halkosaari, Tapani Sarjakoski, and L. Tiina Sarjakoski. 2013. User experiences with voice-based descriptive map content in a hiking context. In: Thomas Jekel, Adrijana Car, Josef Strobl, and Gerald Griesebner (editors). Creating the GISociety. Proceedings of the GI_Forum 2013 Conference. Salzburg, Austria. 2-5 July 2013. Berlin / Offenbach, Germany. Herbert Wichmann Verlag, VDE Verlag. Pages 49-58. ISBN 978-3-87907-532-4. DOI:10.1553/giscience2013s49Environments can be made more accessible by offering users information about barriers and objects that might hinder their progress, thus enabling more information about accessible routes. The study delineates the relevant geospatial information needed to describe the accessibility of an environment. Even though laws, acts and regulations give thorough building requirements for creating accessible environments, there is no holistic approach in geospatial data collection to represent the accessibility of geographical spaces. In this thesis, an information model is presented for representing the pedestrian environment. The model allows for accessibility issues and enables the use of geospatial information in pedestrian navigation applications. In addition to data contents and data modelling, this research studies how accessibility can be further increased by way of sound when communicating geospatial information. By communicating the geospatial information via sound the information content can be enhanced and usability improved. Sonic maps create remote access to nature and enhance the accessibility of a place. In this thesis, the fundamental aim was to study the information requirements in particular situations where different kinds of pedestrian users determine which route they might successfully complete. The results of the thesis will help data providers collect and store geospatial information, while taking accessibility issues into account, and hopefully it will raise awareness about issues pertaining to universal accessibility. Albeit, the main effort should focus on building accessible environments; in certain situations, people face hindrances and geospatial information could enable users overcome them.Ympäristöistä voidaan tehdä saavutettavampia tarjoamalla käyttäjille tietoa mahdollisista esteistä tai muista kulkua vaikeuttavista kohteista. Tässä tutkimuksessa määritellään tarvittava paikkatieto, jolla jalankulkijan ympäristö ja sen esteettömyys voidaan kuvata. Esteettömien ympäristöjen luomiseksi on olemassa joukko lakeja ja asetuksia, mutta ympäristön esteettömyyden kuvaamiseksi tarvittavalle paikkatiedolle ei ole määritelty kattavaa keräys- ja esitysmuotoa. Tässä väitöskirjassa esitellään tietomalli, jolla jalankulkijan ympäristö ja sen esteettömyys voidaan kuvata. Malliin voidaan sisällyttää esteettömyyttä kuvaavia tietoja ja se mahdollistaa tämän tiedon käytön myös navigointisovelluksilla. Tietosisällön ja sen mallintamisen lisäksi tässä työssä on tutkittu kuinka ympäristön saavutettavuutta voidaan lisätä kommunikoimalla paikkatietoa myös äänen avulla. Äänen avulla voidaan paikkatiedon määrää ja laatua sekä sen käytettävyyttä lisätä. Äänikartoilla voidaan luoda eräänlainen etäyhteys kuvattuun ympäristöön ja sen avulla lisätä ympäristön saavutettavuutta. Tämän väitöskirjan tavoitteena on määrittää erilaisten käyttäjien vaatima paikkatieto tilanteissa, joissa heidän on tehtävä päätös pystyvätkö he kulkemaan valitsemansa reitin. Tämän työn tulokset auttavat paikkatiedon tarjoajia keräämään ja tallentamaan paikkatietoa niin, että se kuvaa myös ympäristön esteettömyyttä. Ympäristöjen esteettömäksi rakentamisen tulisi edelleen olla ensisijainen tavoite, mutta koska jotkut käyttäjät tietyissä tilanteissa edelleen kohtaavat esteettömyysongelmia, heitä voitaisiin paikkatiedon avulla auttaa väistämään ne

Advanced Location-Based Technologies and Services

Since the publication of the first edition in 2004, advances in mobile devices, positioning sensors, WiFi fingerprinting, and wireless communications, among others, have paved the way for developing new and advanced location-based services (LBSs). This second edition provides up-to-date information on LBSs, including WiFi fingerprinting, mobile computing, geospatial clouds, geospatial data mining, location privacy, and location-based social networking. It also includes new chapters on application areas such as LBSs for public health, indoor navigation, and advertising. In addition, the chapter on remote sensing has been revised to address advancements

Spatial and Temporal Sentiment Analysis of Twitter data

The public have used Twitter world wide for expressing opinions. This study focuses on spatio-temporal variation of georeferenced Tweets’ sentiment polarity, with a view to understanding how opinions evolve on Twitter over space and time and across communities of users. More specifically, the question this study tested is whether sentiment polarity on Twitter exhibits specific time-location patterns. The aim of the study is to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution of georeferenced Twitter sentiment polarity within the area of 1 km buffer around the Curtin Bentley campus boundary in Perth, Western Australia. Tweets posted in campus were assigned into six spatial zones and four time zones. A sentiment analysis was then conducted for each zone using the sentiment analyser tool in the Starlight Visual Information System software. The Feature Manipulation Engine was employed to convert non-spatial files into spatial and temporal feature class. The spatial and temporal distribution of Twitter sentiment polarity patterns over space and time was mapped using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Some interesting results were identified. For example, the highest percentage of positive Tweets occurred in the social science area, while science and engineering and dormitory areas had the highest percentage of negative postings. The number of negative Tweets increases in the library and science and engineering areas as the end of the semester approaches, reaching a peak around an exam period, while the percentage of negative Tweets drops at the end of the semester in the entertainment and sport and dormitory area. This study will provide some insights into understanding students and staff ’s sentiment variation on Twitter, which could be useful for university teaching and learning management

European Handbook of Crowdsourced Geographic Information

"This book focuses on the study of the remarkable new source of geographic information that has become available in the form of user-generated content accessible over the Internet through mobile and Web applications. The exploitation, integration and application of these sources, termed volunteered geographic information (VGI) or crowdsourced geographic information (CGI), offer scientists an unprecedented opportunity to conduct research on a variety of topics at multiple scales and for diversified objectives. The Handbook is organized in five parts, addressing the fundamental questions: What motivates citizens to provide such information in the public domain, and what factors govern/predict its validity?What methods might be used to validate such information? Can VGI be framed within the larger domain of sensor networks, in which inert and static sensors are replaced or combined by intelligent and mobile humans equipped with sensing devices? What limitations are imposed on VGI by differential access to broadband Internet, mobile phones, and other communication technologies, and by concerns over privacy? How do VGI and crowdsourcing enable innovation applications to benefit human society? Chapters examine how crowdsourcing techniques and methods, and the VGI phenomenon, have motivated a multidisciplinary research community to identify both fields of applications and quality criteria depending on the use of VGI. Besides harvesting tools and storage of these data, research has paid remarkable attention to these information resources, in an age when information and participation is one of the most important drivers of development. The collection opens questions and points to new research directions in addition to the findings that each of the authors demonstrates. Despite rapid progress in VGI research, this Handbook also shows that there are technical, social, political and methodological challenges that require further studies and research.