Assessing the value of the information provision for enhancing the autonomy of mobility impaired users. Madrid pilot Site Study.

A City is the space where every person acquires the citizen condition, which demands access to multiple services and facilities, and develops social relations in a free and equal condition of options. A lack of accessibility limits independency and autonomy. Thus, the relationship between “sustainable development” and “accessibility for all” becomes clearer, and both goals reinforce each other. In this sense, information plays a key role in order to overcome existing barriers, specially for people who rarely use public transport, have impaired mobility, or make a particular journey for the first time. The impact and benefits is linked with public transport as a “facilitator” of mobility, and, in particular, for the aim of intermodality. The usefulness of information that should be provided (both the information itself and how is offered) to mobility impaired users (MI users) is discussed on this paper based on following of the ASK-IT project that has being carry out on Madrid. The work was done in close cooperation with representatives of all different types of MI user groups

What drives consumers' e-loyalty to airlines web site? Conceptual framework and managerial implications

This study proposes a revised technology acceptance model that integrates expectation confirmation theory to measure continuance intentions of online shopping for airlines web sites. The sample respondent 465online users in Saudi Arabia. A structural equation model confirms model fit. Perceived usefulness, enjoyment, social pressure, and loyalty incentives are determinants of online flight booking continuance in Saudi Arabia. This research moves beyond online booking intentions and includes factors affecting online booking continuance. The research model explains 53% of the intention to continue booking using airlines web sites

The survey on Near Field Communication

PubMed ID: 26057043Near Field Communication (NFC) is an emerging short-range wireless communication technology that offers great and varied promise in services such as payment, ticketing, gaming, crowd sourcing, voting, navigation, and many others. NFC technology enables the integration of services from a wide range of applications into one single smartphone. NFC technology has emerged recently, and consequently not much academic data are available yet, although the number of academic research studies carried out in the past two years has already surpassed the total number of the prior works combined. This paper presents the concept of NFC technology in a holistic approach from different perspectives, including hardware improvement and optimization, communication essentials and standards, applications, secure elements, privacy and security, usability analysis, and ecosystem and business issues. Further research opportunities in terms of the academic and business points of view are also explored and discussed at the end of each section. This comprehensive survey will be a valuable guide for researchers and academicians, as well as for business in the NFC technology and ecosystem.Publisher's Versio

Review of state of knowledge regarding the safety, access and usability needs of children with disabilities

Within European countries and the European Union, there is wide recognition that special consideration must be given to the needs of both people with disabilities and to young people. In terms of ergonomics design, consideration needs to be given to access to public buildings, safety in the home, school buildings and educational services, ability to make use of public transport, etc. This research focused on children who also have disabilities, an area that is less well understood and where it is uncertain whether standards or legislation exist. Interviews and discussions with experts were conducted to locate knowledge about design for disabled children in different contexts. This document reports the results of the research sponsored by ANEC (www.anec.org). The study identified relevant standards, legislation or guidelines within Europe and outside which could potentially be employed by the standards bodies within the European Union and promulgated more widely. The report also showed that there are gaps in knowledge indicating a requirement for further research to be carried out to generate suitable guidelines for standards bodies to consider

Contributions to the security and privacy of electronic ticketing systems

Un bitllet electrònic és un contracte en format digital entre dues parts, l'usuari i el proveïdor de serveis, on hi queda reflectit l'acord entre ambdós per tal que l'usuari rebi el servei que desitja per part del proveïdor. Els bitllets són emprats en diferents tipus de serveis, com esdeveniments lúdics o esportius, i especialment en l'àmbit del transport. En aquest cas permet reduir costos donat l'alt volum d'usuaris, a més de facilitar la identificació del flux de viatges. Aquesta informació permet preveure i planificar els sistemes de transport de forma més dinàmica. La seguretat dels bitllets electrònics és clau perquè es despleguin a l'entorn real, com també ho és la privadesa dels seus usuaris. La privadesa inclou tant l'anonimitat dels usuaris, és a dir, una acció no s'ha de poder atribuir fàcilment a un determinat usuari, com també la no enllaçabilitat dels diferents moviments d'un determinat usuari. En aquesta tesi proposem protocols de bitllets electrònics que mantinguin les propietats dels bitllets en paper juntament amb els avantatges dels bitllets digitals. Primerament fem un estat de l'art amb les propostes relacionades, analitzant-ne els requisits de seguretat que compleixen. Presentem un protocol de bitllets electrònics que incorpora els nous requisits de seguretat d'exculpabilitat i reutilització, diferents dels que haviem analitzat, tot complint també la privadesa pels usuaris. Posteriorment, presentem una proposta de bitllets electrònics adaptada als sistemes de pagament depenent de l'ús, bàsicament enfocat al transport, que incorpora tant l'anonimat pels usuaris, com també la enllaçabilitat a curt termini, és a dir, complint la no enllaçabilitat dels diferents moviments del mateix usuari, però permetent la enllaçabilitat de les accions relacionades amb el mateix trajecte (p.ex. entrada i sortida). Finalment, mitjançant una evolució de la mateixa tècnica criptogràfica utilitzada en el sistema de pagament per ús, millorant-ne el temps de verificació per a múltiples bitllets alhora (verificació en ``batch''), presentem una proposta que pot ser útil per a varis sistemes de verificació massiva de missatges, posant com a cas d'ús l'aplicació a sistemes de xarxes vehiculars.An electronic ticket is a digital contract between two parties, that is, the user and the service provider. An agreement between them is established in order that the user can receive the desired service. These tickets are used in different types of services, such as sports or entertainment events, especially in the field of transport. In the case of transport, costs can be reduced due to the high volume of users, and the identification of the travel flow is facilitated. This information allows the forecast and planification of transport systems more dynamically. The security of electronic tickets is very important to be deployed in the real scenarios, as well as the privacy for their users. Privacy includes both the anonymity of users, which implies that an action cannot be easily attributed to a particular user, and also the unlinkability of the different movements of that user. This thesis presents protocols which keep the same security requirements of paper tickets while offering the advantages of digital tickets. Firstly, we perform a state of the art with the related proposals, by analysing the security requirements considered. We then present an electronic ticketing system that includes the security requirements of exculpability and reusability, thus guaranteeing the privacy for users. We later present a proposal of electronic ticketing systems adapted to use-dependant payment systems, especially focused on transport, which includes both the anonymity of users and the short-term linkability of their movements. The related actions of a journey of a determined user can be linkable between them (i.e. entrance and exit of the system) but not with other movements that the user performs. Finally, as an extension of the previous use-dependant payment system solution, we introduce the case of mass-verification systems, where many messages have to be verified in short time, and we present a proposal as a vehicular network use case that guarantees privacy for users with short-term linkability and can verify these messages efficiently

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse