Intelligent Transport Systems - Telenor

Jorunn Kaasin (24) is a Master
of Science in Telematics from
the Norwegian University of Science
and Technology, graduating
summer 2002. Her master
thesis focused on next generation
of mobile applications,
where she used Java 2 Micro
Edition (J2ME) to develop a
prototype of a first generation
location based chat service for
mobile phones. Jorunn has
been working in Accenture
since September 2002, in
charge of a small competency
group focusing on J2ME.
jorunn.kaasin@portalen.no
Do Van Thanh (45) obtained his
MSc in Electronic and Computer
Sciences from the Norwegian
Univ. of Science and Technology
(NTNU) in 1984 and his PhD in
Informatics from the University of
Oslo in 1997. In 1991 he joined
Ericsson R&D Department in Oslo
after 7 years of R&D at Norsk
Data, a minicomputer manufacturer
in Oslo. In 2000 he joined
Telenor R&D and is now in charge
of PANDA (Personal Area Network
& Data Applications) research
activities with a focus on
SIP, XML and next generation
mobile applications. He also
holds a professor position at the
Department of Telematics at
NTNU in Trondheim. He is
author of numerous publications
and inventer of a dozen patents.
thanh-van.do@telenor.com
Telektronikk 1.2003
A New and Pleasant Way of Traveling
JORUNN KAASIN AND DO VAN THANH
1 Introduction
This article presents a simple service that can
make a journey by car more enjoyable by letting
the traveller communicate with others having the
same destination. The strength of the service lies
in the fact that it does not require the user to
have any particularly advanced devices but a
regular PDA or a Java-enabled phone. Another
interesting aspect is that all the users are allowed
not only to receive information about their
itinerary but also to contribute actively in the
collection and updating of information. The service
is a typical example showing how IT and
telecommunications can be used in a simple
manner to provide improvement in the transport
sector.
People traveling with cars (or other vehicles)
may be interested in getting information about
the area they are traveling in, be it information
about a new road, diversions because of traffic
accidents or road work, or simply to get explanation
of a route if a map is out of reach.
Some solutions already exist, like radio programs
dedicated to traveling people, informing
about things to pay attention to when driving.
These programs are most widespread and useful
in big cities, and the information given will
therefore not satisfy everyone. Even if you are
in one of these cities, the information might be
useless if you are not in the specific area where
the information is relevant. The same is the case
when a driver is on a long distance trip and
listens to a radio program passing on traveling
information for drivers in the whole country.
Another drawback is that these radio programs
are generally only broadcast during holidays, or
in rush hours.
The Intelligent Transport System (ITS) is aiming
to solve these problems. A client running the
service should be available for downloading to
the user’s mobile device over the air and installed
with little or no interaction from the user.
The terminal must support J2ME CLDC/MIDP
[1]. Figure 1 illustrates a situation where this
service could be useful for other travelers.
It could be also interesting to the travelers to get
statistics about a certain trajectory or route at a
certain date and time. For example, what is the
traffic situation between Oslo and Trondheim at
10 a.m. on a Saturday.
2 Description of the Service
The idea of this service is to let traveling people
communicate with others in the same area or
with the same destination target. For instance,
if a user is driving a car in a specific area and
wants to get information about the traffic there,
they can join a group representing this area and
receive information or ask questions to everyone
registered in that group, or only to one specific
user in the area. The difference between unicasting
and multicasting of messages will be described
later. Another example is the case of a
user traveling from Oslo to Trondheim who may
need to exchange information with other travelers
making the same journey. Figure 2 shows a
scenario were a user is looking for a gas station
in a specific area.
The call outs are actually text written on a
mobile terminal for instance by a passenger.
In principle the application could be controlled
both by speech and physical interaction from the
user, since a user behind the wheel will not be
able to write messages by hand while driving.
Speech recognition is on its way, but there is still
a long way to go, and as a result this version of the
prototype will only realize the possibility to send
text.
The association of a user to a group could be
decided based on location information supplied
by for example Global Positioning System
(GPS). Such a solution allows the device to find
information about the location without the intervention
of the user. Unfortunately, this is a scenario
for the future, but this prototype will just
as well be a location-based service. In contrast to
using GPS or similar technology called second
generation of location-based equipment, this service
will be of first generation. This means that
the user is responsible for typing in the location
to join a suitable group.
As the service is location based, groups basically
represent locations, but could in practice represent
other areas of interest. In this way the service
becomes a generic service that can be used
for much more than the initial thought.
To use this service the user must log on to the
service with a user name and then decide
whether to join a public or private room. In a
public room the messages will be sent to every
member of the group, while in the private room
there will be exchange of messages between two
59