Sevket Gökay

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.

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.

Connecting smart grid protocol standards: A mapping model between commonly-used demand-response protocols OpenADR and MIRABEL

Heterogeneous smart grid systems operate with different and incompatible protocols. MIRABEL and Open-ADR are prominent examples, providing intelligent demand respond functionalities. In principle of operation as in complexity, both protocols differ significantly, which results in a lack of inter-connectivity among themselves. Connecting these commonly used standards makes it possible to benefit from different protocol advantages and prevents from reconstructing whole smart grid systems for consolidation. Furthermore, it holds potentials for interoperability of individually produced smart grid components. This work contributes a conceptual mapping model between OpenADR and MIRABEL on the basis of a detailed protocol analysis, as well as an initial implementation.

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.

A Structured Approach to Support Collaborative Design, Specification and Documentation of Communication Protocols.

Especially in complex software development projects, involving various actors and communication interdependencies, the design of communication protocols is crucially important. In this work, a structured approach to support the design, specification and documentation of communication protocol standards is presented. To do so, we refer to a complex use case, dealing with the integration of multiple mobility services on a single platform. This endeavor requires the development of a large number of independently usable protocol standards which adhere to a multitude of quality aspects. A structured approach is required to speed up and simplify development and also to enable synergies between these protocols. Our requirements analysis methodology consists of interviewing domain experts to identify important aspects and shortcomings of the current development process and to elicit potential improvements. These intermediate results are prioritized and incorporated into a requirements specification for a standardized communication protocol development process. Furthermore, we assess existing software solutions in terms of their applicability.

Mobility Service Platforms - Cross-Company Cooperation for Transportation Service Interoperability.

The growing number of modes of transportation with diverse characteristics and situational suitability would allow a multifaceted mobility behavior. Unfortunately, the usage of a combination of heterogeneous modes of transportation – specifically during a complex travel chain with multiple changeovers – is hindered in various ways. Users have to query, compare, combine, book and use multiple specialized mobility service individually which results in inefficiencies both on demand and supply side. Centralized mobility service platforms can form a technological bridge to deliver service interoperability. In cross section between competition and cooperation, the need for suitable, profitable, and sustainable market forms to provide complex service configurations arises. As a result of interdisciplinary workshops with domain experts, we describe a role relationship model and identify relevant market forms. To do so, we present a conceptional tool to analyze, characterize and differentiate various mobility service platforms and apply it to set of platforms currently beeing developed.

Heuristics for Improving Trip-Vehicle Fitness in On-demand Ride-Sharing Systems.

On-demand ride-sharing services are emerging alternatives to classical transport modes. Combined with selfdriving vehicles, this movement has potential to shape the future of our mobility. To make full use of the potential, such services need to be scalable with growing demand. Assigning real-time trip requests to vehicles such that the driving costs are minimized is computationally expensive, but has to be done fast. This work proposes an approach to reduce the processing time it takes to assign a trip request to a vehicle. The solution is a trip-vehicle fitness estimation framework that is flexible enough to utilize any fitness measure and is self-adjusting through feedback loops. We analyze the placement of a trip request within a vehicle schedule, present and implement three fitness measures. The resulting system is evaluated based on performance, customer satisfaction and vehicle costs criteria by running simulations. The evaluation results indicate significant performance improvement and noticeable improvements in terms of customer satisfaction and vehicle costs.

Semi-automated Business Process Model Matching and Merging Considering Advanced Modeling Constraints.

Model merging helps to manage the combination and coevolution of business processes. Combining models (semi-)automatically can be a helpful technique in manifold areas and has been investigated since decades by the scientific community. The rising complexity of (business-) processes in shifting environments demands for a more differentiated view on model matching and merging techniques. In this domain, we identified the problem of considering additional constraints in the matching and merging process and suggest an approach by adapting state of the art solutions correspondingly. In addition, we state necessary reduction rules and discuss their suitability. Moreover we provide a prototypical implementation of a matching and merging tool, which allows further investigations of the approach concerning quality, usefulness and efficiency.

Implementation and Evaluation of an On-Demand Bus System.

This work aims to develop and evaluate a dynamic bus system which abandons the concepts of a traditional bus service like bus line, bus station and timetable. The resulting system supports bringing customers from any location to any location, has a fleet of buses the routes of which are updated repeatedly as requests arrive and are accepted, and employs time windows in order to guarantee the desired pick-up and drop-off times of customers. We propose a technical realization and evaluate its effectiveness by running simulations in which traditional and dynamic systems are compared. Even though the operational cost and financial efficiency from a bus service provider’s perspective is not the focus of this evaluation, the preliminary results show that both the provider and the customers might benefit from an on-demand dynamic system. We also hint at the feasibility of such a system in not only low-demand rural areas, but also high-demand urban regions.