A New Passenger Support System for Public Transport Using Mobile Database Access.pdf

A New Passenger Support System for Public Transport Using Mobile Database Access Koichi GOTO Yahiko KAMBAYASHI Railway Technical Research Institute Kyoto University, School of Informatics 2-8-38, Hikari-cho, Kokubunji-shi Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Tokyo 185-8540 Japan Kyoto 606-8501 Japan goto@rtri.or.jp yahiko@i.kyoto-u.ac.jp Abstract We have been developing a mobile passenger support system for public transport. Passen- gers can make their travel plans and purchase necessary tickets by accessing databases via the system. After starting the travel, a mo- bile terminal checks the travel schedule of its user by accessing several databases and gath- ering various kinds of information. In this ap- plication field, many kinds of data must be handled. Examples of such data are route information, fare information, area map, sta- tion map, planned operation schedule, real- time operation schedule, vehicle facilities and so on. Depending on the user’s situation, different information should be supplied and personalized. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism to support passengers using the multi-channel data communication envi- ronments. On the other hand, transport sys- tems can gather information about situations and demands of users and modify their ser- vices offered for the users. We also describe a prototype system developed for visually hand- icapped passengers and the results of tests in an actual railway station. 1 Introduction The mobile computing technologies are rapidly grow- ing and spreading their application field [1, 2, 3]. Es- pecially supporting human activities in the outdoor Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the VLDB copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Very Large Data Base Endowment. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/