Christian Samsel

Usability Evaluation of Mobile Passenger Information Systems

Public transportation becomes increasingly diverse because of innovation in transport modalities and a large number of service providers. For facilitating passengers’ comfort, intermodal passenger information systems are required, which combine data of different providers and transport modes. Therefore, context sensitive mobile applications are promising solutions to supporting passengers at every stage of their trip. Crucial for the success of these applications is their usability. In this paper, a prototype of an intermodal passenger information system is investigated in a usability evaluation and tested in comparison to the leading mobility application in Germany. Both iOS apps were evaluated with a questionnaire using the system usability scale (SUS) in a lab setting (n=20) and in a field test (n=20). Additionally, participants of the field test were interviewed retrospectively about app and setting. The user feedback was beneficial in learning about users’ expectations towards information retrieval procedure in and functionalities of a passenger information system. The usability evaluation basically revealed easy to improve usability problems, but also a trust issue and the need for a participatory component in public transportation, probably by integrating social media.

Product oriented integration of heterogeneous mobility services

Growing spontaneous mobility demand and decreasing affinity to automobile ownership in young generations require integrated concepts for intermodal mobility. Especially in areas with insufficient capacity coverage by traditional public transport, adding alternative services, e.g. car sharing, seems promising. Currently, customers have to combine different means of transportation manually by checking several information sources, creating a combined itinerary and booking several, mode specific tickets. This paper presents an information system architecture, the so-called Mobility Broker, a joint platform for mobility services that enables provider collaboration to offer travelers the best possible combined service. Mobility Broker combines heterogeneous mobility service data, like time tables and car sharing places, using standardized open interfaces and well-known methods of data integration. The combined information allows intermodal routing for generating combined itineraries. Furthermore, it allows to use one ticket for heterogenous travelings. By this simplification of access to intermodal travel, we aim to foster the integration of alternative public transport modes. Thereby, the heterogeneous mobility service product characteristics and related synergy effects determine the approach fundamentally.

Business model framework to provide heterogeneous mobility services on virtual markets

Growing spontaneous mobility and decreasing affinity to automobile ownership in younger generations demand for an integrated service for intermodal mobility. In areas with lacking coverage of traditional public transportation, extending the coverage by integrating alternative services like car sharing, seems promising. Because of the very different nature, the collaboration between traditional public transport and emerging mobility services requires fundamental changes to business models. Current business models are designed under the assumption of separation and competition, which contradicts the idea of collaboration. Therefore, a restructuring of all main pillars of business models under the consideration of mutual interdependencies is required. This work defines such business model pillars and contributes a business model framework for providing different mobility services on centralized virtual markets. Basis is a joint platform which enables collaboration between multiple services to provide a collective intermodal mobility service to the customer.

Personalized, Context-aware Intermodal Travel Information

The integration of heterogeneous mobility services increases the number of itinerary choices exponentially. To support travelers with the selection of such an intermodal itinerary this work proposes the use of a recommendation system. The developed framework rates intermodal itineraries supplied by an external travel information system based on learned personal preferences and user context (e.g. weather). This rating can be used by the client application (e.g. a mobile app) for sorting or a five-star rating. The framework realizes a set of interfaces to extract feature data of the user context and the possible itineraries and applies a combination of item-based and context-based recommendation algorithms. As evaluation an online questionnaire (n = 101) applying the framework was conducted to assess the feasibility of the approach. The number of participants preferring the personalized and context-aware itinerary presentation compared to the traditional departure time-based presentation was significant. Furthermore it could be verified that a mobility self-assessment is suitable as initial training data.

IXSI - Interface for X-Sharing Information

The increasing demand for mobility, especially for individual transport, leads to more pollution, congested cities and shortage of parking. New ways of mobility could mitigate these issues. Unfortunately, such forms of mobility, i.e. carsharing, are usually isolated services, because of the missing integration with other mobility modes. Our aim is to offer a combination of heterogeneous services on a single platform. We argue that such an integration allows optimal offers and higher usability and therefore results with a higher acceptance among travelers. Embedding a vehicle rental system into a travel information system information-wise is a step forward. For this purpose, we developed an interface for x-sharing information, short IXSI, specialized in connecting vehicle rental systems with a travel information system. IXSI is an XML-based, B2B interface with functions for, e.g., exchanging basic vehicle data and price information. The interface enables travel information systems to perform bookings of carsharing and bikesharing vehicles and therefore allows the customer to use traditional public transport services as well as rental services seamlessly. Furthermore, we briefly present our IXSI implementations on travel information and vehicle rental system side.

Integrating image management and analysis into OpenClinica using web services

Although image-based measures have become an important surrogate for primary endpoints in controlled clinical trials, electronic data capture (EDC) insufficiently supports image and signal data files. In this paper, we suggest a simple extension of OpenClinica, the world’s largest open source EDC system, to handle image data files, process image and signal data, and fill out the electronic case report forms (eCRF) accordingly. We use the web service server interface that is integrated with OpenClinica. The missing client component is substituted by CRF embedded JavaScript and a PHP proxy on server side. JavaScript is also used to display images within the OpenClinica interface. The counterpart system was developed using the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and the Java application programming interface (API) for eXtensible Markup Language (XML) web services (JAX-WS). Image processing is implemented in Java using ImageJ libraries. We demonstrate the workflow for CRFs of a conjunctival provocation test, where two photographs of a human eye are captured, transferred into the eCRF, segmented and measured. The secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) is used to transfer the data files between the systems, and web services are used to fill the eCRFs, which also integrate resulting images generated by the analysis process. Both, images as well as computed measures are automatically displayed within the OpenClinica eCRFs and can be evaluated by the study nurse after file upload. This allows re-capturing of images in case of evaluation failure, and avoids elaborative query management. In future, DICOM-based data transfer will be implemented.

Heterogeneous Travel Information Exchange

Travel information brokers are complex systems, dealing with a large amount of heterogeneous data from various sources. The exchange and integration of such data is therefore demanding, particularly for small mobility service providers with few IT resources. To face this problem, this work illustrates a key tool to support information and service integration. On a conceptual level, we present a travel information broker system architecture and respective information flows. Additionally, we describe data exchange related to system components, e.g., intermodal routing, pricing and accounting. On this basis, we developed and tested a communication adapter that enables and eases communication between the core system and second party service providers. Furthermore we outline the method of extending public transportation routing with information about sharing services. This enables travelers to query combined information about public transport, bikesharing as well as carsharing services using a single application.

Information Integration for Advanced Travel Information Systems

ATIS (Advanced Travel Information Systems) are complex systems, dealing with a large amount of heterogeneous data from various sources. The exchange and integration of such data is therefore demanding, particularly for small mobility service providers with few IT (Information Technology) resources. To face this problem, this work illustrates an IT infrastructure to support information and service integration. On a conceptual level, this paper presents a travel information system architecture and respective information flows between components, e.g., intermodal routing, pricing and accounting. As realization, the authors developed and tested a communication adapter that enables and eases information exchange between the ATIS and heterogeneous second party service providers, e.g., carsharing operators. Furthermore, the authors developed a method of extending traditional public transportation routing using the exchanged information about sharing services. This enables travelers to query intermodal itinerary information combining public transport, bikesharing as well as carsharing services using a single application. The overall system was tested in a three-month testing phase. Initial results are promising.

Using Wearables for Travel Assistance

In the last decade, personal mobility has become more diverse and more complex. Public transportation networks have grown bigger and new travel modes, e.g., car sharing, have emerged. Thus the required electronic travel assistance, usually provided by smartphone applications, has been well-established and is generally accepted. Unfortunately using a smartphone application to check the itinerary while travelling can be a hassle. The traveller has to pull out the device, unlock it, start the application and find the required information inside the application. In the meantime he or she is distracted which causes a loose of time and also may lead to dangerous situations, e.g., in traffic. To improve this situation we developed a smartwatch application following the Cascading Information Theory principle which assists the traveller by displaying all journey-related required information on his or her wrist and notifies him or her when necessary. The prototype of the application was evaluated in an initial user test (n = 5) and improvement compared to a single smartphone application was assessed. The evaluation results showed that users prefer a smartwatch/smartphone based solution over a pure smartphone application and are distracted for a shorter timespan.

Cascading Information for Ubiqitous Mobility Assistance

Over the last years, personal mobility has become both more prominent and more diverse. Because of the complex structure of today’s transport networks, an electronic guidance is effectively required. Usually different transport modalities and service providers offer their own mobile application to which the traveler has to adapt after changing between services. Additionally a current trend in mobile applications is the customization of GUI elements which leads to appealing looks but usually also to cluttered presentation of information. Both these problems cause a high cognitive stress on the traveler using the mobile application, especially while conducting other activities at the same time. Our approach to mitigate these issues is to create a mobile application applying the principle Cascading Information Theory to simplify the usage. A prototype of the application was evaluated in an user test for comparing our approach to the most popular mobile travel application in Germany.