1- What is the difference between Traveler Information, Loca

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One of the major objectives of Traftools which is written in the Vision Statements for the year 2004 stated the following.

ìTraftoolsprovides traveler information for drivers. The information is a set of driving directions that is responsive to traffic conditions in real-time (short-term prediction). We are planning to provide travel routes for other commuters besides drivers such as kiss-and-ride passengers using rail, and bus services as well. By the end of next year, we should be able to provide a shortest cost path from origin to destination considering all travel modes (bus, rail, taxi, etc.) available in the urban area.î

From the above statements, traveler information is purely ìthe informationî. Driving directions, locations of the vehicles, locations of selected services such as Gas Station, travel route for commuter are information. Each of this information alone can be ìtraveler informationî. You, the user will have to select which one is useful and important to you.

Location-based service basically tells where you are on a map. Two important aspects that you should understand about this service: the map is the heart and all other sets of information i.e. locations of gas stations, restaurants, shopping malls, etc are derived from the map. Therefore, location-based service is considered ìinformationî service and can be called ìtraveler informationî as well. All these sets of information are very useful.

In a number of articles that you might have seen before, the word location-based service is used to include driving direction, location of all services around you, etc. This is where I would like to emphasize. There is nothing wrong to include other information into location-based and call location-based service. The only difference is that these services can be separated and you should think and decide whether you really all services, i.e., many people think that driving direction alone is enough and therefore they decide to subscribe only the driving direction service, while others may decide to include their whereabouts information on the maps or location-based services as well.

One of the most important aspects of location-based services is the ability to track the location of the drivers or users, if needed. Commercial vehicles especially long haul trucks utilized location-based service many years ago. The company always knows its fleet whereabouts, travel speed; time arrived at the destination, etc.

Now, we are going to talk about means to deliver and devices to display the information. This is where Navigation devices come in. First we should understand background information and then reasons behind different devices.

Again, letís start with how Traftools derived and delivered its information

ìTraftools derive driving directions on our servers, because our process is very complex and requires a number of data sets to interact within our software programs (called TIE ñ Traffic Information Engine). Many sets of data from different sources are collected processed centrally in order to simulate, predict and optimize traffic conditions for the entire urban area. Therefore, we need means to deliver our services (information or traveler information) to the users (you). Traftools chooses to deliver information via Internet on both wire and wireless means.î

Most information including most location-based information can be delivered this way as well.

For this case, you donít need a complex device to receive the information. Wireless PDA with many other useful functions for mobile personnel can receive and display the information perfectly. Once this device receives the information such as driving directions, locations of the user, locations of other services such as gas stations, and other services, it functions as a navigation device.

So what is an in-car navigation device? The widely known in-car navigation device has been introduced into most luxurious cars starting since 1997. It is widely used in the US around the year 1999. Usually the first generation system is comprised of three main parts: (1) a software program to compute driving direction from point A to B using shortest distance path algorithm; (2) a micro computer or processor with CD or DVD reader and a screen; and (3) a location-based receiver/interpreter device. Another word, the in-car navigation combines many functions together. Most of the present in-car navigation systems are exactly like this. Some technology might be changed, for example, changing from CD to DVD so that the map can be included into just 1 or 2 diskettes and later HDD came into play to provide 3-D visual effects.

So how does this first-generation-system work? The main functions are divided into two parts: deriving driving direction and indicating the location of the car.

Deriving the driving directions take just the origin, destination, the available roadways and distance into consideration and derive the directions without taking in real-time traffic data to process at all. There is no real-time traffic involved, no travel time optimization, no accident, incident or other event data taking into the computation. In fact, if lots of car use this device, you will have traffic congestion on most of the main freeways, because it tends to direct traffic onto the same main routes that are the shortest distance between the main attractions.

Now, I have just described the second mean to deliver the information and the displayed device: using the same device to process and display information. You can imagine that in order to compute driving directions, display on the map and indicate the carís locations, a really heavy and sophisticated computerized system is needed and therefore you end up with a very expensive system with very minimal use: in the car and for deriving driving directions only.

Letís talk a little bit about a device used to detect and display location of the car on maps.

Scientist can determine location of vehicle using numerous methods and devices. However, for the purpose of this article, let me present only the most widely used one: GPS (Global Positioning System). GPS uses time difference among signals from different satellites orbiting the earth to reach the receiver to determine the carís position. GPS is potentially the most accurate method available.

The GPS receiver needs to be installed in the car. Then the signal from the receiver is sent to the carís computer (navigation device) directly and display on the map. In many cases where the locations of many vehicles need to be analyzed and displayed centrally, the signals are sent from the vehicles using different mobile wireless devices to the servers (process centrally); then redistributing the locations to other devices via Internet. This process is becoming more popular and exactly the same as the Traftoolsís deliver method mentioned above.

Dan Nual, Ph.D. www.routeinform.com