Integration of Traffic Management and Traveller Information Systems: Basic Principles and Case Study in Intermodal Transport System Management

As they involve many interacting agents behaving in numerous ways that are extremely difficult to predict, urban transportation systems are complex in nature. The development of intermodal passenger transportation solutions to address the mobility issues constitutes a major thrust area of urban transport policies. But, to offer citizens comprehensive seamless mobility, intermodal transportation system management (ITSM) requires the integration of two major components. The traffic regulation support system, to help the operator responsible for the regulation tasks: coordination of timetables, synchronising arrival and departure times between the different transportation modes, and the traveller information system, giving customers access to information and using a comprehensive set of information tools. In this paper, a generic model of a transport management system, integrating these two components is proposed. This generic model is then used to elaborate a traffic regulation system in the case of a bimodal transportation system (tram-bus). The traffic regulation support system, based on the decision model of an operator, and the traveler information system are described

Agent-oriented design of human–computer interface: application to supervision of an urban transport network

International audienceAt the present time, the approaches found in the design of interactive systems use a modular structure, with the aim of achieving a better understanding of reactivity, flexibility, maintainability and reuse at the human–machine interface level. However, most architecture models are far more concerned with user-controlled applications and they do not consider the specificities of supervision applications in which the human operator acts as the controller and commander of an independent dynamic process. A multi-agent approach is a possible answer to this type of situation. The agent-oriented model put forward in this article is the subject of an application intended in the long term to supervise the user information system of an urban transport network

Evaluation of Agent-based Interactive Systems: Proposal of an Electronic Informer Using Petri Nets

The evaluation of interactive systems has been an active subject of research for many years. Many methods and tools have been proposed but most of them do not take architectural specificities of agent-based interactive systems into account. In addition, electronic informers are popular evaluation tools but current ones have often some limits. In order to solve these problems, we propose an electronic informer to evaluate agent-based interactive systems. This tool captures interaction events occurred in agent-based interactive systems and then, based on such captured data, it realizes treatments such as calculations, statistics and generates Petri Nets (PNs) to assist evaluators in evaluating three aspects of the system: user interface, non-functional properties (e.g. response time, reliability, etc.) and user’s properties (e.g. abilities, preferences, etc.). The approach has been validated by applying it to evaluate an agent-based interactive system used for the supervision of urban transport network

Contribution à l'évaluation des systèmes interactifs orientés agents

VALENCIENNES-BU Sciences Lettres (596062101) / SudocSudocFranceF

Définition et test d'un outil d'aide à l'évaluation de systèmes à architecture à base d'agent, par approche à base de connaissances.

Ce mémoire contribue à la thématique de l'évaluation des interfaces utilisateur. Il se base sur deux contributions pour l'évaluation de ces interfaces. La première consiste en un Framework se basant sur trois différentes techniques d'évaluation (le mouchard électronique, le questionnaire et l'inspection des règles ergonomiques). La seconde consiste en deux ensembles de composants graphiques pour la composition d'interfaces graphiques avec les environnements de développement intégral du type WYSIWYG. Le premier ensemble vise à inspecter la présentation statique de l'interface lors de la conception de cette dernière. Cette inspection s'effectue localement par le composant graphique lui-même par rapport à un ensemble de règles ergonomiques. Le second ensemble consiste à l'évaluation de l'interface utilisateur en analysant l'interaction entre l'utilisateur et l'interface. Cet ensemble de composants opère avec un mouchard dédié à cet usage. Une évaluation de ces deux contributions ainsi que des perspectives de recherche concluront ce présent mémoire.This thesis report is a contribution to the user interface evaluation theme. Our thesis is based mainly on two contributions for user interface evaluation. The first one consists of a Framework dedicated for user interface evaluation. It is based on three evaluation techniques (the electronic informer, the questionnaire and the ergonomic inspection). The second consists of two sets of graphical controls for composing the user interface using WYSIWYG integrated development environment. The thirst set is intended to inspect the user interface static display during the design phase. This inspection is elaborated by the control itself according to ergonomic guidelines. The second set consists in evaluating user interfaces by analyzing the interaction between the user and the interface. This set of controls operates with an electronic informer dedicated to user interface evaluation. An evaluation of these two contributions as well as research perspectives concludes this present report.VALENCIENNES-Bib. électronique (596069901) / SudocSudocFranceF

Modelling of an interactive system with an agent-based architecture using Petri nets, application of the method to the supervision of a transport system.

International audienceThis article presents an original method using high level Petri nets for the specification and design of interactive systems. We suggest an agent oriented architecture based on the classic components of an interactive application (application, dialogue control, interface with the application). Our approach is validated via the specification and design of a human–machine interface used in the supervision of a land-based transport system (bus/tramway)

RITA: a useR Interface evaluaTion frAmework

Interactive systems are constantly evolving. This evolution leads to new challenges. One of these challenges pertains to the quality of dialogue between interactive systems and humans. This dialogue essentially takes place through user interfaces. User interface evaluation is essential to improve communication between a system and its users. The research on interface evaluation is plentiful. Nevertheless, user interface evaluators still encounter difficulties. Therefore, in this article we suggest expanding the functionalities of existing evaluation tools by proposing a user interface evaluation framework. This framework is composed by software applications structured following a modular architecture. It is based on three different evaluation techniques and has a modular architecture that can be configured to evaluate different user interfaces. After being presented, this framework is tested on a network supervision system for a project in the transportation domain. The main advantages of the presented Framework are the following: (1) the guidelines are not hard coded into the evaluation engine; (2) it is based on three different evaluation techniques to avail further data for the evaluation; (3) it is structured following a modular architecture to enable flexible and configurable use; (4) interaction data are automatically captured and analyzed; and (5) the framework is intended for the evaluation of different kind of user interfaces

EISEval, a generic reconfigurable environment for evaluating agent-based interactive systems

International audienceThe evaluation of interactive systems has been an active subject of research for many years. Many methods have been proposed, but most of them do not take the architectural specificities of an agent-based interactive system into account, nor do they focus on the link between architecture and evaluation. In this paper, we present an agent-based architecture model for interactive systems. Then, based on this architecture, we propose a generic, reconfigurable evaluation environment, called EISEval, designed and developed to help evaluators analyze and evaluate certain aspects of interactive systems in general and of agent-based architecture interactive systems in particular: User Interface (UI), non-functional properties (e.g., response time, complexity) and user characteristics (e.g., abilities, preferences, progress). System designers can draw useful conclusions from the evaluation results to improve the system. This environment was applied to evaluate an agent-based interactive system used to supervise an urban transport network in a study organized in laborator

Prevision of evaluation by traces during the software design of interactive systems: two approaches compared

International audienceInteractive system evaluation is currently the subject of numerous research projects. Some are intended to link design and evaluation explicitly by different software mechanisms. In this chapter, we describe two evaluation approaches based on the concept of traces, taking advantage of new technologies and paradigms. The first uses Aspect-Oriented Programming; the second proposes an explicit coupling between agent-based architecture and evaluation agents. These two approaches are globally compared