Multi-modal Trip Planning for the San Francisco Bay Area - Mentz ...

6 mdv news I/2011
DEFAS Quo Vadis
The last time DEFAS FGI BAYERN appeared in
mdv news II/2009, we were at the very beginning
of the project. Since then, DEFAS BAYERN
has lost three letters and been officially in operation
since 1 July 2010. But the question is, can
passengers tell the difference?
The Portals
The first portal, which was supplied by the
DEFAS BAYERN Background System, was
already in operation in April 2010. Passenger
information systems were set up for the State
Garden Show in Rosenheim by RoVG (Rosenheim
Transport Authority) at three central stations
in Rosenheim (Rail Station, City Center
and Atrium). On these information boards, the
latest departures of the SVR (Rosenheim City
Transport) and RVO (Upper Bavarian Regional
Transport) were displayed. At first, DEFAS BAY-
ERN could only provide scheduled times. However,
with the development of AVM systems of
the two companies, a shift to real-time is now
possible.
During this time, the German Telecom set up
several public telephones around the Garden
Show with displays (Ö-Tel) (see Fig. 1) which
showed the current departures of the nearest
stops (Fig. 2). The familiarity of the telephone
keypad makes it easy to plan a journey, even for
those of us who are non-technical experts. The
public telephones at the garden show were
part of a pilot project. In the meantime, more of
these systems have been set up throughout
Bavaria and the existing systems have been
transferred to the DEFAS BAYERN Background
System.
Both the displays of the RoVG and the public
telephones access the DEFAS BAYERN EFA XML
interface.
On 1 January 2011 the new regional timetable
was followed by the first internet portal, which
replaced the old one mainly based on the
Deutsche Bahn timetable for Baveria. The new
timetable impresses with its heavily map-based
layout. During input, users can select between
entering text and using the map. Even when
typing text, feedback can be seen directly on
the map. The results page displays both a
detailed view and a visualization of the currently
selected journey on the map. Users can
choose between a vector map, aerial photos
and a hybrid display. In the future, a topographic
map with elevation information will be
added.
One new system feature is the visualization of
vehicle positions on the map. Visualization
information is supplied to AVM Systems by the
VDV 453 VIS interface so that the current positions
of the vehicles can be displayed directly
on the map. Punctual vehicles are represented
by a green arrow. Slightly and majorly delayed
vehicles are displayed with an orange or red
arrow. If the mouse is moved over one of the
vehicles, additional information about the vehicle
appears in a bubble such as route number
and direction. Currently, visualization informa-
tion is available in DEFAS BAYERN for the
Stadtwerke Augsburg and the Mobility Company
Omnipart.
Shortly after the release of the schedule for
Bavaria, two additional portals were added that
might normally be considered somewhat
exotic. The first is Bayerntext (see Figure 3) of
the Bavarian Television network and the other
is the cross-country portal of the German Ski
Association. Bayerntext has been supplying current
traffic information for Bavarian highways
and airports for a long time. More recently, the
current departure boards of the Munich and
Nuremberg train stations have been added.
According to statistics from the Bavarian Television
Network, Bayerntext is an information
medium that continues to be highly popular in
use, especially in generations that grew up
without IPhones and the internet.
The next change for the portal will be to move
the major Bavarian transport authorities to
DEFAS BAYERN. They all currently operate their
own journey planning systems without realtime
information and, with only a few exceptions,
are limited to their particular area. The
groundwork for this move is already underway
so that passengers now using the individual
authority portals can benefit from the statewide
real-time journey planning system in the
near future.
Real-time
Figure 1: Bavaria Journey Planner on public telephones Figure 2: Public telephone departure board Figure 3: Bayerntext
The goal of DEFAS BAYERN is a comprehensive
state-wide real-time journey planning system
for passengers. For this to become a reality the
AVM system data have to be processed in VDV
454 REF-AUS and AUS format. At the same time,
vehicles are displayed made on the map, whose
AVM system data are supplied in VDV 453 VIS
format. When this issue went to press, the following
suppliers had been integrated to the
real-time journey planning system: