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TD 4.1 - Interoperability Framework

The aim of the ‘Interoperability Framework’ (TD4.1) is to facilitate multimodal travel in a highly diverse environment and with many transport modes. The world of transportation service providers needs to be open-ended; it evolves at its own pace, and uses multiple data formats and interfaces. Interoperability at the semantic level defines formal and explicit models of the transportation domain in an open, standard, machine-readable language that is exchanged automatically by computers.

Implementation within IP4 projects


WP2 - USER DEMAND

General objective: Map the current and future demand for the Interoperability Framework (IF).
Specific objectives:
  1. Analyse the market actors’ interests in the IF;
  2. Analyse the travellers demand for the TC.
In order to design and develop a sustainable and successful IF Governance, the requirements from the different actors in the transport chain needs to be mapped and analysed. For this WP the actors in the transport chain need to be split into two main categories: the individual consumer (user and non-user of the transport system) and the market actors. The IF should by definition always remain hidden from the consumer. Travellers and potential travellers will only come into contact with the TC through a custom-designed interface. Consumer will be able to use the TC as a whole system or separately according to personal expectations, e.g. specific trip tracker solutions and/or PRM guidance, etc. The consumer will have certain requirements for the TC which in suit will formulate certain demands for the IF. E.g. Consumers will need to develop trust in the various TC capabilities: journey planner; travel shopper, trip tracker etc. As a whole, he/she would be confident that the TC provides him the ‘best’ travel solutions according to his/ her preference(s). Operators, authorities and other suppliers have different perspectives and responsibilities in the transport sector chain, especially with regard to the different modes (rail, coach, air, urban transport and other/new mobility services) but also within a given mode (from one country/city to another – local versus European perspective), so they have different needs and restrictive conditions to address the IF. Their specific positions need to be clarified per category of actors/ modes/new mobility services crossed with the category of products of the TC.
These actors will also have certain expectations and demands for the development and management of the new mobility services including the e-services. The technology market as semantic interoperability solutions addressing the IF will be analysed in parallel in WP4.

WP3 - Regulatory Environment for Interoperability Framework components

In order to respond to the impact statement and to assure large acceptance of the IF by transport stakeholders, the EU Policy environment must be reflected in the definition of service requirements and use cases in WP2 and WP5.
A positive policy environment, with commercial realities considered, will facilitate the acceptance and implementation of effective governance for the underlying Framework components. In order to best enable a governance framework to fulfil passenger’s needs in the future, WP3 will identify the interactions of the regulatory environment and market initiatives that will enable the use of new semantic technologies that can deliver a seamless customer experience. The work will be carried out based on the survey of available information sources as well as new surveys, interviews and/ or focus groups with smaller sets of individuals (mobility experts, user representatives, etc.).
A holistic analysis of the market needs and constraints will be undertaken in WP3. The results of WP3 will be documented so that they can be used as a basis for annotations to extend the IF Ontology and as an input for WP5. In order to limit the risk for input into WP5, the WP Leader is also participating in this work package and will be able to use preliminary results as input in case there are any delays with the interim deliverable.

WP4 - SEMANTIC INTEROPERABILITY TECHNOLOGY MARKET

WP5 - GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE FOR IF

The governance and management structure will be the specific deliverable of WP5, and will be based on best practices as implemented by the W3C consortium governing the specifications and World Wide Web technologies.

WP3 - Design of Interoperability Framework Converters

This WP will produce the conceptual design of the converter-generation procedure

WP4 - Reference implementation of Interoperability Framework Converters

This WP will study the best approach to implementation of the design, including a selection of tools and frameworks, and provide a specific implementation of the design with the support of established software developer partners active in the provision of solutions and services to the Rail Industry

WP5 - Pilot demonstrator of Interoperability Framework Converters

This WP will analyse the selected target use case, develop the test cases and performance measures, and implement the actual demonstration scenario providing quantitative analysis of the results.

WP1 - Interoperability Framework

Interoperability Framework deals with the specification, design, and implementation of the Interoperability Framework that will provide seamless access to all transport data and services in a multimodal and distributed environment; resulting on a global services and data market place, liberated from technological barriers and where different systems can interoperate regardless data formats and communication protocols

WP3 - Technical Coordination and System Coherence

Technical Coordination and System Coherence will assure the coordination inside the activities of the project, but also with the other TDs inside the IP4. It will be responsible for integrating and testing the WP1 and WP2 technical results.

WP2 - - Requirements and alignment with S2R IP4

This Work Package will define requirements for the IF architecture design to be aligned with S2R IP4 and compatible and complementary with NAP architecture and dataexchange models. More specifically, the objectives of WP2 are:
  • Contribute to S2R realisation in the SERA and alignment with S2R IP4.
  • Analysis of related S2R IP4 projects results and ongoing activities.
  • Analysis of the related European initiatives results and ongoing activities particularly in Public Transport.
  • Define the requirements for the IF architecture design in order to make it aligned and complementary with the results of S2R IP4 projects and with European initiatives related to urban and public transport, to contribute to the SERA.
  • Define the criteria for the IF architecture as a complement to EU National Access Points for Multimodal Transportation.
  • Provide recommendations on future developments and deployment of the IF to S2R IP4.

WP3 - Performance and Scalability of the IF

The goals of this Work Package are manifold:
  • It will identify the needs of the S2R IF – especially for what concerns performance and scalability, but also other technical needs – in order to define a corresponding set of requirements.
  • It will study the state-of-the-art in architecting systems that process and manage semantic data, and identify the best practices.
  • It will assess the performance of the components that are currently implemented in the S2R IF, to identify potential bottlenecks and issues.
  • Based on the previous results, it will recommend a reference architecture for the S2R that satisfies the identified needs.
  • It will define a testing infrastructure and suitable KPIs to assess the performance and scalability of the newly implemented reference architecture of the S2R IF.

WP4 - Semantic Automation for Service Integration

The objectives of WP4 are the following:
  • assessment of current TD4.1 approaches and software solutions for the creation, usage and management of the IF assets;
  • analysis of the state-of- the-art and best practices to improve the automation of current TD4.1 approaches and software solutions when dealing with the generation/extension/revision of ontologies, mappings and annotations;
  • definition of a solution for the collaborative engineering of lightweight ontologies;
  • definition of a solution to automate the generation of ontology-based mappings and annotations enabling the conversion/translation of heterogeneous messages exchanged by different systems;
  • selection of tools and products available on the market to be adopted and, in case, extended, to support the progressive automation of semantic assets generation;
  • enhancement of the IF Semantic Assets Manager with new mechanisms to better support assets publication, usage and management.

WP5 - Proof-of-concepts Implementation and Validation

The main objective of WP5 is to develop, deploy and evaluate the technological solutions identified and designed in the project. More specifically, WP5 objectives are:
  • Defining the scenarios and use cases for the proof-of-concept, in terms of functionalities, stakeholder analysis, components, services, execution workflows and framework conditions.
  • Setting up the technical environment where to exercise the proof-of-concept so to concretely simulate (or, whenever possible, experiment) realistic working conditions and constraints.
  • Implementing the proof-of-concept that realises the reference architecture and comprises the components and supporting tools identified and designed in WP3 and WP4; the implementation will reach at least TRL 4, but some components could achieve higher levels of TRL maturity.
  • Deploying the implemented proof-of-concept in the setup technical environment in order to exercise it and evaluate it in the context of the indicators and KPIs defined in WP3.
  • Reporting on the validation results of the proof-of-concept, so to enable a clear assessment of the functional and non-functional capabilities of the implemented solution.

WP3 - Development of enhanced Travel Companion and Ride-sharing TSP

"Work Package 3 is concerned with the development and implementation of specific software artefacts: • Automatic classifier of trips computed by Travel Experts according to the criteria identified as an outcome of Work Package 2 activities. The classifier will implement new algorithms able to associate itinerary offers with quantitative estimates of specific parameters for each of the classification categories. • Automatic Itinerary composer to create full end-to-end mobility solutions by assembling classified itinerary offers. The itinerary composer will implement new synchronization algorithms that will use estimated values of classified itineraries’ parameters to synchronize shared-mobility with rail and mass transit offers. • Trip Ranking module, which ranks classified trips according to the contextual preferences of users, and, in doing so, suggests users trips that not only fit their preferred criteria, but also are more sustainable. • Analytics module, which automatically learns and updates user preferences depending on their history of choices, thus providing better, more tailored suggestions when ranking trips. • Crowd-based Travel Expert generator allowing individuals, communities and/or Public Authorities to build, test and publish ride-sharing Travel Expert web services, making it available to the classifier and composer through the Interoperability Framework.
• Enhanced Travel Companion application."

TD 4.2 - Travel Shopping

The ‘Travel Shopping’ (TD4.2) aims to provide a comprehensive shopping application enabler which combines all modes of transport, all operators and all geographies, and provides a list of customer-relevant trip offers which are guaranteed available for booking, purchase and ticketing. The IP4 approach will promote the integration of distributed travel operators’ data and the orchestration of services such as expert journey planning. It will be facilitated by the Interoperability Framework by enabling applications based upon different standards or coding lists, to communicate meaningfully but without costly application adaptations.

Implementation within IP4 projects


WP1 - Travel Shopping

The Travel Shopping work package will address the following objectives:
  • Enrich Journey Planning functionalities by ensuring the re-accommodation of journey
  • Enlarge the journey planning by taking into account the first and last miles, allowing the traveller to use personal or shared transport modes (e.g. Car sharing, Bike Sharing)
  • Refine the offer building with more information, alternatives and ancillary services.
  • Manage the failure cases
  • Develop Technology Demonstrators for Rail and Urban domain with the addition of the Car-Sharing, Bike-Sharing and Car park management.

WP01 - Travel Shopping CREL

The Travel Shopping work packages (WP1 and WP2), linked to TD4.2, will address the following objectives:
  • Enrich Journey Planning functionalities by introducing Multi-User Capabilities
  • Enlarge the Travel Shopping by taking into account additional modes for the first and last miles, esp. Demand Responsive Transport
  • Refine the Travel Shopping with more information, alternatives and ancillary services.
  • Manage the failure cases at all stages
  • Develop Technology Demonstrators for all modes, esp. Rail and Urban domain with the addition of the Demand Responsive Transport.

WP02 - Travel Shopping FREL

This WP is also linked to TD4.2, and therefore its global objectives are already included in WP1.

WP2 - Travel behaviour and system requirements

WP2 is concerned with the definition of the following assets to be used by WP3 for the development and implementation of specific software artefacts: • Conceptualization of trip categories and travellers’ contextual preferences; • Definition of incentive mechanisms adopted to influence travellers in the choice of trip categories and to create awareness of more sustainable solutions; • Clustering of travellers having similar characteristics and behaviour; • Identification of target users acting as ride-sharing TSPs and ride-sharing travellers; • Definition of criteria and recommendations for a successful ride-sharing in the IP4 ecosystem; • Definition of requirements and specifications for the complementary travel expert services that will be designed and implemented by WP3 and tested by WP4. 


WP03 - Evolution of IP4 components Specification

Evolution of IP4 components WPs (WP3, WP4) are linked to TD4.2, TD4.3 and TD4.4, and specially to all the modules and components deployed at the core of the IP4 ecosystem that make possible all the flows such a shopping, ticketing and trip tracking, as well as those tools created for TSP to manage these aspects. The activities take as input the works of previous projects (ATTRACkTIVE, Co-Active and MaaSive) with the following objectives:
  • Enhance orchestration components, taking into account new needs, shortcomings detected in previous versions, new flows of information and secure data exchange.
  • Improvement of journey planning by optimizing the algorithms for intermodal needs and enabling the IP4 ecosystem for a multi-client approach.
  • Assure compatibility with different validation schemas and technologies, proposing optimal ticketing solutions for MaaS and intermodal environment. Make a better management of customers’ accounts and TSPs revenues, reinforcing also security and anti-fraud mechanisms.
  • Enhance and create new tools to be used by TSPs. The existing Contractual Management Market place, that allows them to register multimodal contractual agreements and MaaS packages will be enhanced with new capabilities. A new tool will be proposed for TSPs for events and real time information management, facilitating also the dispatching of events to the users.
  • WP3 will focus on providing the specifications that will guide the implementations done in WP4.

WP04 - Evolution of IP4 components Implementation

Evolution of IP4 components WPs (WP3, WP4) are linked to TD4.2, TD4.3 and TD4.4, and specially to all the modules and components deployed at the core of the IP4 ecosystem that make possible all the flows such a shopping, ticketing and trip tracking, as well as those tools created for TSP to manage this aspects. WP4 will focus on implementing the specifications designed in WP3, including updates of specifications when needed.

TD 4.3 - Booking & Ticketing

The ‘Booking & Ticketing’ (TD4.3) will orchestrate multiple but parallel interactions with several booking, payment and ticketing engines, including the all-important roll-back activities, should any single transaction fail, in order to eliminate risk. Thanks to the concept of a unique traveller identifier and wallet, the traveller will have easy access to the complete and integral components of his/her journey, including easy production of the entitlement tokens required for all ticket validation controls encountered en route. It will radically simplify the traveller’s life, by abolishing uncertainties associated with ‘behind-the-scenes’ multiple booking, payment and ticket processes.

Implementation within IP4 projects


WP2 - Booking & Ticketing

The Booking & Ticketing work package will address the following objectives:
  • Model the travel rights in order to manage a smart re-accommodation of the co-modal journey
  • Manage the failure cases
  • Ensure the correct clearing and settlement for business entities
  • Develop Technology Demonstrators for Rail and Urban domain with the addition of the Car-Sharing, Bike-Sharing and Car park management.

WP03 - Booking & Ticketing CREL

Booking & Ticketing (B&T) work packages (WP3 and WP4), linked to TD4.3, will address the following objectives:
  • Complete and complement works performed within CO-ACTIVE, enhancing orchestration capabilities and B&T functionalities
  • Assure alignment and compatibility among IP4 B&T components and MaaS approach, especially in aspects such as tariffs calculation and clearing schemas, and integrating new technologies and paradigms such as blockchain.
  • Propose validation and inspection technologies in order to foster interoperability at media level and work towards the reduction of interaction between the traveller and the infrastructure.
  • Provide travellers with better Customer Relationship Management services, especially regarding passengers rights in a multimodal environment

WP04 - Booking & Ticketing FREL

1This WP is also linked to TD4.3, and therefore its global objectives are already included in WP3

WP09 - ENHANCED BUSINESS RULES AND CONTRACTUAL MANAGEMENT – CREL

The Enhanced Business Rules and Contractual Management work package will enhance the Co-Active WP3 “Business and Contractual Management” outcomes in order to take into account the Intermodality constraints as well as the MaaS and the DRT approaches. This work package has been identified as separated from the others work package due to its transversal approach and the impact multiple TDs. It will work in three lines, related among them:
  • Business Rules: Those need to reflect the complete nature of the transport arena, including all forms of public and private transport modes; the complex nature of redistribution of funds between intermodal journeys, particularly in times of disruption and re-accommodation; the need of operators to have control of their commercial strategy.
  • An expanded Contractual Management Marketplace (CMMP) that reflects the contractual needs of all operators in an intermodal journal; can handle future (and potential theoretical) requirements of operators; can handle complex situations, such as inter- and intra-MaaS relationships.
  • A Best price engine that helps to calculate the best price for travellers, especially performing multiple travels, taking into account defined mobility packages as the one proposed by MaaS.

WP10 - ENHANCED BUSINESS RULES AND CONTRACTUAL MANAGEMENT – FREL

This WP is totally linked to WP9, and therefore its global objectives are already included on the previous description of WP9.

WP2 - Travel behaviour and system requirements

WP2 is concerned with the definition of the following assets to be used by WP3 for the development and implementation of specific software artefacts: • Conceptualization of trip categories and travellers’ contextual preferences; • Definition of incentive mechanisms adopted to influence travellers in the choice of trip categories and to create awareness of more sustainable solutions; • Clustering of travellers having similar characteristics and behaviour; • Identification of target users acting as ride-sharing TSPs and ride-sharing travellers; • Definition of criteria and recommendations for a successful ride-sharing in the IP4 ecosystem; • Definition of requirements and specifications for the complementary travel expert services that will be designed and implemented by WP3 and tested by WP4. 


WP03 - Evolution of IP4 components Specification

Evolution of IP4 components WPs (WP3, WP4) are linked to TD4.2, TD4.3 and TD4.4, and specially to all the modules and components deployed at the core of the IP4 ecosystem that make possible all the flows such a shopping, ticketing and trip tracking, as well as those tools created for TSP to manage these aspects. The activities take as input the works of previous projects (ATTRACkTIVE, Co-Active and MaaSive) with the following objectives:
  • Enhance orchestration components, taking into account new needs, shortcomings detected in previous versions, new flows of information and secure data exchange.
  • Improvement of journey planning by optimizing the algorithms for intermodal needs and enabling the IP4 ecosystem for a multi-client approach.
  • Assure compatibility with different validation schemas and technologies, proposing optimal ticketing solutions for MaaS and intermodal environment. Make a better management of customers’ accounts and TSPs revenues, reinforcing also security and anti-fraud mechanisms.
  • Enhance and create new tools to be used by TSPs. The existing Contractual Management Market place, that allows them to register multimodal contractual agreements and MaaS packages will be enhanced with new capabilities. A new tool will be proposed for TSPs for events and real time information management, facilitating also the dispatching of events to the users.
  • WP3 will focus on providing the specifications that will guide the implementations done in WP4.

WP04 - Evolution of IP4 components Implementation

Evolution of IP4 components WPs (WP3, WP4) are linked to TD4.2, TD4.3 and TD4.4, and specially to all the modules and components deployed at the core of the IP4 ecosystem that make possible all the flows such a shopping, ticketing and trip tracking, as well as those tools created for TSP to manage this aspects. WP4 will focus on implementing the specifications designed in WP3, including updates of specifications when needed.

WP05 - Software as a Service Solutions Specification

The general objective of this work package is to provide a seamless door-to-door travel experience, realised “as a Service” and able to integrate small PTOs fast and easily. This work package aims at:
  • Building an intelligent Software as a Service (SaaS) architecture, providing a complex and scalable data management system
  • Fast and easy deployment, including a standardised integration and registration of new TSPs, as complement of the activities already started in CONNECTIVE
  • Provision of a wide range of functionalities available “as a Service”, including Journey Planning, Offer Building, Real Time Information handling and further evolution and adaptation of the Ticketing components and Operators services already implemented within MaaSive

TD 4.4 - Trip Tracker

The ‘Trip-tracker’ (TD4.4) will give travellers in-trip assistance when navigating transport nodes, while also providing personalised information (related to predefined preferences) and up-to-date status reports on subsequent legs of the journey; it will support them in case of disruption, by proposing updated booking possibilities together with updated rights to travel.

Implementation within IP4 projects


WP1 - TRIP TRACKING

WP1 Trip Tracker deals with the specification, design and implementation of the system in charge of collecting travel information from multiple sources, to detect and handle transport events and disruptions for all modes and to provide travel tracking services.

WP3 - TECHNICAL COORDINATION AND SYSTEM COHERENCE

WP3 Technical Coordination and System Coherence will assure the coordination inside the activities of the call, but also with the other TDs inside the IP4 programme in general and in particular with IT2Rail and with Co-Active (CO-modal journey re-ACcommodation on associated Travel serVices). It will also be in charge of integrating and testing WP1 and WP2 technical results and organisation evaluation session with end-users to collect feedback and new requirements for the next releases.

WP2 - User-centred behaviour & analysis

User-centred behaviour & analysis - The overall objective of this work package is to understand and to predict the behaviour of users when using PT and multimodal options for their trips. This WP sets the foundations for the travel companion since it will give an extensive overview of travellers’ attributes that affect travel choices. The specific objectives of the WP are related to project objectives O1 and O4 (see section 1.1.3 of part B). WP2 aims to achieve the following specific objectives:
  •  To determine and to quantify factors affecting travellers’ strategic and dynamic (i.e., affective) choices.
  •  To develop a model for analysing user’s trip purposes and create a “preferences scheme”.
  •  To develop an integrated modelling framework for simulating and predicting users’ choices and behaviour.
  •  To design a reputation algorithm that ranks users and users’ choices and improves personalization of recommended actions.
  •  To obtain feedback from the pilots in order to improve the models at a technical level.

WP4 - Personalized Human Machine Interface

The objectives of this WP are:
  • To define a common My-TRAC HMI concept that can be adapted to the specific requirements of each Pilot site.
  • To integrate HMI modules according to the overall concept, so to ensure interoperable and seamless experience.
  • To define training schemes for ensuring adoption and long-term usage for citizens and stakeholders.
  • To receive feedback from pilots to improve technically the HMI and to make sure that the training schemes are tested on the pilot population

WP5 - “My Travel Companion” development & integration

The objectives of this WP are:
  • To implement My-TRAC for both mobile and servers as developed and described in WP2 and WP3.
  • To integrate My-TRAC with external services like booking, ticketing and the analytics provided by the platform.
  • To tailor the mobile application and its data to the needs of the final user for their specific trip based on the user’s requirements, and providing the My-TRAC application with the capability for off-line services even in the case of a lack of connectivity.
  • To allow the traveller to interact with the environment and receive recommendations about different aspects of their trip from servers and from the data within their mobile device.
  • To extend the value of a ticket offering added value service, promotions and discounts aligned with travellers’ preferences, behaviour and travel planning, maximising the user’s experience while engaging in a multimodal trip and becoming a commerce access point for local business with direct contact with travellers.
  • To allow groups of people traveling together to interact among themselves, plan their trip together and receive group recommendations computed in their mobile device to preserve the privacy of their data, using advanced graph technologies and simple Bluetooth communication among them.
  • To receive feedback from pilots in order to continuously improve the My-TRAC Companion.

WP6 - Pilots

Pilots will be used to test the My-TRAC application in a realistic environment. Two target-groups are distinguished for the pilots: Public Transport (PT) users and operators. In addition, PT users will be divided into control and study groups. The objectives of WP6 are the following: Overall:
  • Determine usability of the platform, PT Users:
  • Determine that developed models catch the behaviour of users and environment efficiently.
  • Determine usability of HMI Operators:
  • Determine that behavioural and environmental data retrieved from the platform can efficiently enhance planning activities of operatos

WP05 - Trip Tracking CREL

Tracking the travellers Trip after he has started his journey is an essential part of whole Mobility as a Service (MaaS) system. In IT2Rail the basics of such TripTracking has been laid. The itinerary has been forwarded and is tracked by a single solution system. In ATTRACkTIVE this system was divided into a two-layer system that contains a Tracking Orchestrator and a set of known autonomous so called partial

Trip Trackers each responsible for a specific segment of a journey or special trackers for special purposes. The Trip Tracker work packages (WP5 and WP6), linked to TD4.4, will go a step forward and aims to develop a flexible architecture not only for partial Trip Trackers (pTT) but as well for Event Sources (ES). In addition the Data and Events will be enhanced.

WP06 - Trip Tracking FREL

This WP is also linked to TD4.4, and therefore its global objectives are already included in WP5.

WP09 - ENHANCED BUSINESS RULES AND CONTRACTUAL MANAGEMENT – CREL

The Enhanced Business Rules and Contractual Management work package will enhance the Co-Active WP3 “Business and Contractual Management” outcomes in order to take into account the Intermodality constraints as well as the MaaS and the DRT approaches. This work package has been identified as separated from the others work package due to its transversal approach and the impact multiple TDs. It will work in three lines, related among them:
  • Business Rules: Those need to reflect the complete nature of the transport arena, including all forms of public and private transport modes; the complex nature of redistribution of funds between intermodal journeys, particularly in times of disruption and re-accommodation; the need of operators to have control of their commercial strategy.
  • An expanded Contractual Management Marketplace (CMMP) that reflects the contractual needs of all operators in an intermodal journal; can handle future (and potential theoretical) requirements of operators; can handle complex situations, such as inter- and intra-MaaS relationships.
  • A Best price engine that helps to calculate the best price for travellers, especially performing multiple travels, taking into account defined mobility packages as the one proposed by MaaS.

WP10 - ENHANCED BUSINESS RULES AND CONTRACTUAL MANAGEMENT – FREL

This WP is totally linked to WP9, and therefore its global objectives are already included on the previous description of WP9.

WP5 - Evaluation and Impact assessment

To define, develop and implement an evaluation framework to assess the impact of RIDE2RAIL (pre-and post-demo).


WP03 - Evolution of IP4 components Specification

Evolution of IP4 components WPs (WP3, WP4) are linked to TD4.2, TD4.3 and TD4.4, and specially to all the modules and components deployed at the core of the IP4 ecosystem that make possible all the flows such a shopping, ticketing and trip tracking, as well as those tools created for TSP to manage these aspects. The activities take as input the works of previous projects (ATTRACkTIVE, Co-Active and MaaSive) with the following objectives:
  • Enhance orchestration components, taking into account new needs, shortcomings detected in previous versions, new flows of information and secure data exchange.
  • Improvement of journey planning by optimizing the algorithms for intermodal needs and enabling the IP4 ecosystem for a multi-client approach.
  • Assure compatibility with different validation schemas and technologies, proposing optimal ticketing solutions for MaaS and intermodal environment. Make a better management of customers’ accounts and TSPs revenues, reinforcing also security and anti-fraud mechanisms.
  • Enhance and create new tools to be used by TSPs. The existing Contractual Management Market place, that allows them to register multimodal contractual agreements and MaaS packages will be enhanced with new capabilities. A new tool will be proposed for TSPs for events and real time information management, facilitating also the dispatching of events to the users.
  • WP3 will focus on providing the specifications that will guide the implementations done in WP4.

WP04 - Evolution of IP4 components Implementation

Evolution of IP4 components WPs (WP3, WP4) are linked to TD4.2, TD4.3 and TD4.4, and specially to all the modules and components deployed at the core of the IP4 ecosystem that make possible all the flows such a shopping, ticketing and trip tracking, as well as those tools created for TSP to manage this aspects. WP4 will focus on implementing the specifications designed in WP3, including updates of specifications when needed.

WP04 - Evolution of IP4 components Implementation

Evolution of IP4 components WPs (WP3, WP4) are linked to TD4.2, TD4.3 and TD4.4, and specially to all the modules and components deployed at the core of the IP4 ecosystem that make possible all the flows such a shopping, ticketing and trip tracking, as well as those tools created for TSP to manage this aspects. WP4 will focus on implementing the specifications designed in WP3, including updates of specifications when needed.

WP05 - Software as a Service Solutions Specification

The general objective of this work package is to provide a seamless door-to-door travel experience, realised “as a Service” and able to integrate small PTOs fast and easily. This work package aims at:
  • Building an intelligent Software as a Service (SaaS) architecture, providing a complex and scalable data management system
  • Fast and easy deployment, including a standardised integration and registration of new TSPs, as complement of the activities already started in CONNECTIVE
  • Provision of a wide range of functionalities available “as a Service”, including Journey Planning, Offer Building, Real Time Information handling and further evolution and adaptation of the Ticketing components and Operators services already implemented within MaaSive

TD 4.5 - Travel Companion

The traveller will have full control of the journey, thanks to their own personal and secured ‘Travel Companion’ (TD4.5), which stores and shares their personal preferences in a wallet. It will give access to all travel services needed for the journey, shopping and booking, and allow storage of the rights to travel. At the same time, retailers and operators will be able to identify and authorise the Travel Companion to access their own systems and networks.

Implementation within IP4 projects


WP2 - TRAVEL COMPANION

WP2 Travel Companion aims to specify, design, and implement the required techniques and tools to design novel forms of travel experiences, including an advanced travel companion, shielding the traveller from the heterogeneity and complicity of intermodal services and with navigation assistance.

WP3 - TECHNICAL COORDINATION AND SYSTEM COHERENCE

WP3 Technical Coordination and System Coherence will assure the coordination inside the activities of the call, but also with the other TDs inside the IP4 programme in general and in particular with IT2Rail and with Co-Active (CO-modal journey re-ACcommodation on associated Travel serVices). It will also be in charge of integrating and testing WP1 and WP2 technical results and organisation evaluation session with end-users to collect feedback and new requirements for the next releases.

WP2 - User-centred behaviour & analysis

User-centred behaviour & analysis - The overall objective of this work package is to understand and to predict the behaviour of users when using PT and multimodal options for their trips. This WP sets the foundations for the travel companion since it will give an extensive overview of travellers’ attributes that affect travel choices. The specific objectives of the WP are related to project objectives O1 and O4 (see section 1.1.3 of part B). WP2 aims to achieve the following specific objectives:
  •  To determine and to quantify factors affecting travellers’ strategic and dynamic (i.e., affective) choices.
  •  To develop a model for analysing user’s trip purposes and create a “preferences scheme”.
  •  To develop an integrated modelling framework for simulating and predicting users’ choices and behaviour.
  •  To design a reputation algorithm that ranks users and users’ choices and improves personalization of recommended actions.
  •  To obtain feedback from the pilots in order to improve the models at a technical level.

WP3 - Travel data analytics & model development

The main objective of WP3 is to develop an analytics and prediction framework to give user-orientated advice for the My-TRAC service. This requires collection and structuring of data, in part from WP2, analysis thereof and forecasting for multiple objectives and user preferences. To this extent, the WP targets project objectives O3 (see Section 1.1.3), and exists of three further sub-objectives that aid the completion of the main WP-objective:
  • Develop and setup an integrated data collection stream and process.
  • Develop analytics framework based on Machine Learning and AI.
  • Develop a user-service advice algorithm.
  • Receive feedback from pilots in order to improve the ML and AI framework and to calibrate the user-service algorithm.

WP07 - Travel Companion CREL

The Travel Companion work packages (WP7 and WP8), linked to TD4.5, aim to specify, design and implement an innovative Travel Companion focused on Mobility as a Service enabling:
  • The management of entitlements tailored for multi-modality, including anti-fraud measures,
  • To inform stakeholders such as family members of the travel journey status,
  • The management of multi-user travelling together,
  • A traveller to experience a door-to-door journey through mixed reality.
  • The MaaSive Travel Companion is composed of the following elements:
  • A personal application, based on a framework which enables the integration of all User Interfaces of the MaaSive services into a unified personal application,
  • A Web Front End enabling to access MaaSive services from Web Browsers,
  • A Mixed Reality Composer and Engine, enabling a Travel Expert to create door-to-door experimentations of the future generation of travel experiences using Mixed Reality.
  • The cloud Wallet, a virtual space that stores all relevant information related to the users and their trips (preferences, journey details, entitlements purchased etc), making it available for both te users and also different IP4 services (shopping, Booking etc).

WP08 - Travel Companion FREL

This WP is also linked to TD4.5, and therefore its global objectives are already included in WP7.

WP4 - Demonstrations (proof of concepts, test and validation)

WP4 will deploy the RIDE2RAIL combined suite of travel offer classifications and software components, integrated into existing collective and on-demand transport services, in real-life mobility business cases. 


WP01 - Traveller Concerns Specification

The traveller concerns specification work package aims to provide a novel Travel companion and enhance the traveller’s journey. This work package aims at:
  • Completion of previous developments and filling gaps related to intermodality
  • Enhance user experience by optimizing the balance between information requirements of the transport providers, individual information needs of the passengers as well as transparency and overview within the complexity of available information.
  • Provide a collaborative space for user feedback
  • Maintain and improve a framework that allows the integration of the new components.
  • New HMI for the different components of ExtenSive project
  • A Web Front End enabling to access Travel Companion services from Web Browsers
  • Update the traveller experiences with up to date mixed reality solutions.
  • An orchestration Engine, enabling a Travel Expert to experiment orchestration of travellers during their LBE experiences
  • A personal application including a new interactive interface based on map solutions.

WP02 - Traveller Concerns Implementation

The traveller concerns implementation work package aims at improving the traveller concerns specification as well as the implementation of its different modules. This work package aims at:
  • Implementing new ExtenSive Travel Companion modules and different interfaces
  • Implementing the ExtenSive Web Front End specified on WP1
  • An orchestration Engine, enabling a Travel Expert to experiment orchestration of travellers during their LBE experiences

TD 4.6 - Business Analytics Platform

All the services related to individual travels and to additional sensors will generate a great deal of data which have great value for both operators and end users. It will be the role of the ‘Business Analytics’ (TD4.6) to manage those data. Novel ‘big data’ technologies such as ‘intentional’ semantic information (denoting objects by properties rather than by values) will improve the capabilities to analyse distributed and heterogeneous linked data, creating numerous possibilities to generate unprecedented insights for all the actors of the ecosystem, and new intelligence for the benefit of operators and travellers.

Implementation within IP4 projects


WP2 - USER DEMAND

General objective: Map the current and future demand for the Interoperability Framework (IF).
Specific objectives:
  1. Analyse the market actors’ interests in the IF;
  2. Analyse the travellers demand for the TC.
In order to design and develop a sustainable and successful IF Governance, the requirements from the different actors in the transport chain needs to be mapped and analysed. For this WP the actors in the transport chain need to be split into two main categories: the individual consumer (user and non-user of the transport system) and the market actors. The IF should by definition always remain hidden from the consumer. Travellers and potential travellers will only come into contact with the TC through a custom-designed interface. Consumer will be able to use the TC as a whole system or separately according to personal expectations, e.g. specific trip tracker solutions and/or PRM guidance, etc. The consumer will have certain requirements for the TC which in suit will formulate certain demands for the IF. E.g. Consumers will need to develop trust in the various TC capabilities: journey planner; travel shopper, trip tracker etc. As a whole, he/she would be confident that the TC provides him the ‘best’ travel solutions according to his/ her preference(s). Operators, authorities and other suppliers have different perspectives and responsibilities in the transport sector chain, especially with regard to the different modes (rail, coach, air, urban transport and other/new mobility services) but also within a given mode (from one country/city to another – local versus European perspective), so they have different needs and restrictive conditions to address the IF. Their specific positions need to be clarified per category of actors/ modes/new mobility services crossed with the category of products of the TC.
These actors will also have certain expectations and demands for the development and management of the new mobility services including the e-services. The technology market as semantic interoperability solutions addressing the IF will be analysed in parallel in WP4.

WP3 - Regulatory Environment for Interoperability Framework components

In order to respond to the impact statement and to assure large acceptance of the IF by transport stakeholders, the EU Policy environment must be reflected in the definition of service requirements and use cases in WP2 and WP5.
A positive policy environment, with commercial realities considered, will facilitate the acceptance and implementation of effective governance for the underlying Framework components. In order to best enable a governance framework to fulfil passenger’s needs in the future, WP3 will identify the interactions of the regulatory environment and market initiatives that will enable the use of new semantic technologies that can deliver a seamless customer experience. The work will be carried out based on the survey of available information sources as well as new surveys, interviews and/ or focus groups with smaller sets of individuals (mobility experts, user representatives, etc.).
A holistic analysis of the market needs and constraints will be undertaken in WP3. The results of WP3 will be documented so that they can be used as a basis for annotations to extend the IF Ontology and as an input for WP5. In order to limit the risk for input into WP5, the WP Leader is also participating in this work package and will be able to use preliminary results as input in case there are any delays with the interim deliverable.

WP4 - SEMANTIC INTEROPERABILITY TECHNOLOGY MARKET


WP5 - Pilot demonstrator of Interoperability Framework Converters

This WP will analyse the selected target use case, develop the test cases and performance measures, and implement the actual demonstration scenario providing quantitative analysis of the results.

WP2 - Business Analytics

Business Analytics aims to specify, design, and implement the required techniques; and tools to provide a common business intelligence and Business Analytics (for analytical, forecasting and visualisation purposes) foundation for all Shift²Rail transport product and service providers.

WP3 - Technical Coordination and System Coherence

Technical Coordination and System Coherence will assure the coordination inside the activities of the project, but also with the other TDs inside the IP4. It will be responsible for integrating and testing the WP1 and WP2 technical results.

WP07 - IP4-IP2 Collaboration Specification

As part of Shift2rail JU initiative and in line with the 2020 annual work plan objectives, Extensive project partners are committed to tighten the link with other IPs and CCA projects and exploit synergies. In this context, this work package aims at enhancing the passengers and operators’ services through integration with IP2 Traffic Management system especially for an automated integration layer using data structures following the conceptual data model. This would allow for new business analytics development for a better management of traffic and stations.

This work package will address the below specific objectives:
  • Define decision support algorithms specifications to support operators with disruption management through multimodal alternative paths;
  • Define the functional architecture for data interaction with the TMS, necessary for the CDM data model extension;
  • Define enhanced business analytics specifications for both passengers and operators;
  • Improve cooperation between operators through multimodal service management and performance evaluation;
  • Foster data integration definition and interoperability towards the overall railway system architecture.

WP08 - IP4-IP2 Collaboration Implementation

The IP4- IP2 Collaboration Implementation work package is linked to the previous tasks and activities in WP7 laying the foundation for IP2 – IP4 data integration requirements and DSS algorithms specifications. WP8 has the objective of completing these activities by enhancing and updating previous specifications and implementing different components.

TD 4.7 - Overall IP4 Coordination and Demonstrations

Although IP4 is organised around six Technology Demonstrators (TDs) with clear and non-overlapping objectives, all input will contribute to a specific IP4-integrated Technical Demonstrator (iTD4.7), which will act as the orchestrator of other TDs’ developments, and which will ensure the systems approach to integrate the different TDs’ results.

Implementation within IP4 projects


WP3 - Business and Contractual Management

The Business and Contractual Management work package will address the following objectives:
  • Analysis of the legal rules that govern the transportation business and the relation between the business partners between them and with the end-users
  • Analysis of the Terms and Conditions for the retail and usage policy
  • Specify and model data for future management of the contractual aspect within the IP4 ecosystem

WP4 - Technical Coordination and System Coherence

The Technical Coordination and System Coherence work package will address the following objectives:
  • Define and apply the proven best practices in system engineering
  • Guarantee the technical consistency across the project work package and within work package in other projects
  • Manage the technical coordination and decide on mitigation strategy to bypass or resolve the technical issues
  • Foster of the convergences of technologies to facilitate the adoption across the Railway industry
  • Define the testing strategy and create testing material and means
  • Pre-integrate the software components inside the project and provide an active support to the ITD7
  • The partners plan to deliver software components through an iterative development process. Nevertheless, the Proof of Concepts solutions that will be demonstrated in two releases:
  • The Core Release (CREL), which will cover a first set of features
  • The Final Release (FREL), which will include all features identified in the technical scope

WP1 - Technical coordination of ITD4.7 and technical interface with IP4

The Technical coordination work package will address the following objectives:
  • Effective technical coordination of ITD4.7 and the close technical interface with the IP4 projects to guarantee homogeneity of goals and scheduling, as well as coordinated and cooperative communication and exchange of information.
  • Monitor and ensure the progress of the integration activities and the necessary coordination and communication amongst the various TD;
  • Definition of Technical Principles to be applied;

WP2 - Engineering consistency management

The Engineering consistency management work package will address the following objectives:
  • Establishment of Engineering methodology & guidelines and promote the application of a robust engineering system methodology.
  • Creation and update of a common Glossary to formalize the technical and business environment
  • Identification of a top level requirements’ baseline that will be applicable to all TDs 
  • Interface consistency to guarantee the overall uniformity of concepts application and the interoperability and openness of the design
  • Configuration management of the different packages, modules or components.

WP3 - End to end Use cases definition

The End to end Use cases definition work package will address the following objectives:
  • Identification and characterization of major mobility distresses felt on Multimodal transportation environments, to be addressed on the project;
  • Definition of use cases that will enable to test the concepts, modules and tools developed on the different IP4 projects.
  • Definition of user profiles and personas;
  • Production of evaluation reports and results of tests;
  • Overall use cases planning covering: time (phases and iterations), spatial (projects, sites) and common methodology to be adopted.

WP4 - Testing and Integration

The Testing and Integration work package will address the following objectives:
  • Definition a set of integration tests to validate the communication and relationship between components of different TDs.
  • Ensure all requirements are met, and that all output are as expected for the given input.
  • Scenarios definition to test different inputs and conditions of the use cases defined in other WPs
  • Definition of integration procedures;
  • Perform the integration of the outcome of the different releases

WP5 - Demonstrations

The Demonstrations work package will address the following objectives:
  • Define the functionalities for the demonstration scenarios
  • Design the evaluation framework for the demonstration scenarios
  • Perform the live testing in the selected scenarios

WP5 - Proof-of-concepts Implementation and Validation

The main objective of WP5 is to develop, deploy and evaluate the technological solutions identified and designed in the project. More specifically, WP5 objectives are:
  • Defining the scenarios and use cases for the proof-of-concept, in terms of functionalities, stakeholder analysis, components, services, execution workflows and framework conditions.
  • Setting up the technical environment where to exercise the proof-of-concept so to concretely simulate (or, whenever possible, experiment) realistic working conditions and constraints.
  • Implementing the proof-of-concept that realises the reference architecture and comprises the components and supporting tools identified and designed in WP3 and WP4; the implementation will reach at least TRL 4, but some components could achieve higher levels of TRL maturity.
  • Deploying the implemented proof-of-concept in the setup technical environment in order to exercise it and evaluate it in the context of the indicators and KPIs defined in WP3.
  • Reporting on the validation results of the proof-of-concept, so to enable a clear assessment of the functional and non-functional capabilities of the implemented solution.

WP1 - Project Management & Coordination

This work package deals with the overall coordination and management of all project activities and communication between partners, external parties and with the Shift2Rail JU (S2R); and ensures the smooth operation of the project in terms of strategic and day-to-day management. Furthermore, the main objective of this work package is to ensure that the results of the project are of high quality and accomplish the S2R requirements. To that end this work package addresses several concrete objectives which are:
  • To coordinate the project from the administrative, contractual and financial points of view. This includes the coordination of the reporting process, performance of contract management and communicateon with S2R, the establishment, maintenance and improvement of internal mechanism procedures and tools, preparation of periodic reports, amongst others.
  • To properly control technical work performance and its scientific excellence, including work packages progress coordination and monitoring across all tasks involved in the project by ensuring day-to-day coordination and successful achievement of project objectives on time and within budget.
  • To take care of the IPR management and responsible research innovation dimensions of the project in an accurate and continuous manner.
  • To implement and maintain procedures for quality and risk management in order to ensure the quality of the final results and deliverables and to promptly identify, assess and efficiently manage any related risks by providing corrective actions if necessary.
  • To carry out, promote and engage successful communication actions with other related projects, especially with COHESIVE and other S2R projects, and or initiatives and potential stakeholder of the project

WP2 - Scenarios and use-cases

This work package has the following objectives:
  • To analyse the environment (i.e., involved operators, available legacy systems functionalities and data sets) of each demonstration site in order to take into account realistic constraints.
  • To define a detailed scenario for each demonstration site by means of storyboards composed of travellers’ experiences encountered along a multimodal journey.
  • To break down a set of multimodal traveller’s experience in detailed use-cases representing the sequential interaction of the traveller with Travel Service Providers (TSP) services/systems integrated into the IP4 ecosystem, with special focus on the functionalities used and data exchanged.
This WP includes the - Alignment of the S2M Gantt Chart with COHESIVE, in other words: checking the level of maturity of each demonstration. It will have a direct impact on the prioritization of S2M tasks in terms of Gantt Chart and in the demonstration planned for InnoTrans2020. To support the COHESIVE project to implement the use-cases in the ITD4.7 demonstrator, compatible with the developments made in the others IP4 projects (e.g., CONNECTIVE).

WP3 - Operational design of demonstrations and support

Shift2MaaS covers a significant range of demonstration sites and stakeholders to utilise, operate and validate the IP4 technologies provided by COHESIVE. Essential elements are validated by the demo sites involving all kind of stakeholders participating in seamless mobility and the MaaS concept and having different scopes. The three demonstration sites are:
  • Lisbon demonstration site.
  • Málaga demonstration site.
  • Central-East Corridor demonstration site. This WP will work on determining and preparing the environment that will be used by COHESIVE to perform the demonstrations.

WP4 - Evaluation and Impact Assessment

This WP is concerned with the “second set of actions” outlined in the call, relating to:
  • Firstly, the impact of the IP4 ecosystem on passenger behaviour. The passenger perspective is crucial in the sense that increased patronage is a key driver of the business case.
  • Secondly, it is also necessary to consider the regulatory environment in which transport operators work, and the logistical and business model considerations that will drive take-up.
The call envisages that a key impact of this action is an “assessment of the business and socio-economic impacts of the IP4 ecosystem” – that will “clarify the pros and cons and accelerate market uptake”. The research in this WP builds on the work already published as part of the GoF4R project.

WP5 - Dissemination & Exploitation

This work package runs in parallel with the other work packages during the entire lifecycle of the project and focuses on dissemination and exploitation of the project results. Its major objectives include the widest possible dissemination of project results to transport authorities, public and private operators, travel service providers (TSPs), smart mobility research community and citizens, and the analysis of further exploitation methods, including the drafting of appropriate exploitation plans. This WP is based on the following three main pillars: communication/ cooperation/ networking

WP11 - Large-scale Implementation and Technical Coordination

As part of the Shift2Rail initiative, the ExtenSive project partners have a strong commitment to organise and develop their search activities in line with all other Shift2Rail projects and within an efficient engineering framework. The methodologies, the tools, the quality of the work product and the coordination are considered as key factors to deliver high quality work product in timely manner. This work package, covering “Large-scale Implementation” and Technical Coordination, will address the following objectives:
  • Define and apply the proven best practices in system engineering;
  • Enhance the Shift2Rail IP4 glossary including new concepts related to ExtenSive activities and provide feedback to enhance the IP4 reference ontology;
  • Guarantee the technical consistency across the project;
  • Manage the technical coordination and mitigate strategy to bypass or resolve the technical issues;
  • Foster of the convergences of technologies to facilitate the adoption across the Railway industry;
  • Define testing strategy and create testing material and means;
  • Pre-integrate software components inside the project and provide active support for the iTD4.7;
  • Elaborate technical and business studies on how to realize large-scale implementation.

WP02 - Demonstration Scenario Definition

WP03 - Methodological framework of IP4 demonstrations

WP04 - Demonstration Execution Planning and Monitoring

WP05 - Demonstration Execution Support

WP06 - Performance and impact assessment