Online-Meet-Up: International routing on the example of Linking Alps

Travelling by public transport across borders is not always easy. In most cases, the travel information for the entire route is not combined in a single service and is therefore not easily accessible at a glance. Instead, planning a cross-border trip requires several apps from different service providers for the country or region you are travelling through. This inconvenience may lead travellers foregoing the journey or choosing a less environmentally friendly mode of transport such as the car or plane.

Adressing this problem and encouraging a shift from individual motorized transport to low-carbon mobility options such as public transport was the main objective of the LinkingAlps project. We developed a technical solution to improve the access to climate-friendly mobility options and provide seamless, cross-border information through already existing end-user services for tourists and for local citizens, especially daily commuters, to change their mobility patterns. This was done by applying the concept of Linking of Services and using the OJP Standard (Open API for Distributed Journey Planning). It enables connecting different travel information providers in a decentralised manner and only exchanging and combining routing results instead of exchanging actual data.

This was done by applying the concept of linking services and using the OJP standard (Open API for Distributed Journey Planning). It makes it possible to connect different providers of travel information in a decentralised manner and only exchange and combine routing results instead of exchanging actual data.

Petra Soderqvist from the European Commission and Nicole Hampel from AustriaTech, will give you insights into multimodal travel information services (MMTIS) as well on the project itself. The meet-up will also focus on how our LinkingAlps service works from a technical point of view and which challenges we will have to overcome in the future.

1. Solutions

• International trips with OJP (via demo App): Luka Krevs, CEO at Realis, will present how international trips work within the app SiMO (www.simo.si). Beyond that he will also illustrate the challenges of collecting international timetables for buses and trains and integrating them seamlessly into a route planner.

• Demo of the active systems: Andreas Glauser, Business Analyst at SKI+, will give an insight into how to use the open source demonstration application to find trips with the active LinkingAlps OJP system for all 3 routing cases (within the country, in the neighbouring country and in distant countries).

• Multi languages: Roberto Cavaliere, Subject Matter Expert for AI and mobility solutions at NOI, will provide a detailed overview about how multilinguism aspects are taken into account in the entire distributed journey planning system, with a deepening about how this topic is handled in the OJP interface.

• Exchange points: Serena Barassi, IT consultant at ARIA, will give an overview of the importance, definition and management of exchange points and the upcoming challenges within the Linking Alps project.
  

2. Challenges:

• Stefan Mayr, Managing Director of VAO, will show how combining existing and well-established (federal and national) routing services could be the best way to ensure quality and reliability for all end-users looking for cross-border information.
  

3. Discussion