mobile tourism and mobile goverment - m-govworld
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Mobile tourism andmobile govermentAn inventory of Europeanprojects
MOBILE TOURISM AND MOBILEGOVERNMENT
AN INVENTORY OF EUROPEAN PROJECTS
Claire Huijnen, MTD, MSc
European Centre for DigitalCommunication EC/DC
April 2006
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© European Centre for Digital CommunicationApril 2006
Lay-out: Herman Pijpers, EC/DC
ISBN: 9077743049
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INDEX
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 PROJECTS IN THE AREA OF MOBILE TOURISM . . . . . . . . . 152.1 6th framework projects on mobile tourism . . . . . . . . . . 152.2 Completed projects about mobile tourism (e.g. in 5th
framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232.3 Projects identified in academia or industry . . . . . . . . . . 352.4 Conclusions about projects in mobile tourism . . . . . . . . 43
3 M-GOVERNMENT PROJECTS (A SPECIAL CASE OF E-GOVERNMENT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453.1 What is e-government? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453.2 What is m-government? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463.3 M-government projects in the 6th Framework . . . . . . . . 473.4 M-government related projects indentified in industry or
academia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513.5 Conclusions about projects on M-government . . . . . . . . 62
4 CONCLUDING REMARKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654.1 Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654.2 M-government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Additional mobile tourism related projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75E-government related projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75E-government related pilots/experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79M-government conference titles abstracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
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PREFACE
Mobility has become the key component of modern live, stronglyfacilitated by mobile connectivity over satellite communication, wirelessnetworks, smart tagging and mobile user devices. This huge networkingpotential paves the way for numerous applications in virtually all societaldomains. Given the newness of these products and services, many ofthese applications are experimental and exploratory in nature, andsubject to permanent evaluation and improvement: we learn to becomeserious mobile movers.
The volatility of the field calls for intense monitoring, trend spotting andprogress reporting. The European Centre for Digital Communication(EC/DC) has set out to explore two of the most promising fields: theworlds of mobile tourism and mobile service delivery by governments.The study has been commissioned by the Infonomics and New Media Unitof Zuyd University, to serve as a basis for further project-baseddevelopment at the local and regional level in the university's homebase, the Dutch province of Limburg.
The study is comparative in nature, producing an inventory ofexperimental applications in both domains, with a strong emphasis onrecent European and EU-sponsored joint projects. Based on four monthsof desk research, web-analysis and selected interviewing, the studypresents an overview of the most interesting endeavors in mobility. Thereport will first of all be used as a sounding board for further action ofthe commissioning INM-unit, and furthermore be a valuable source ofinformation for all those who are or will become active in thedevelopment of novel mobile applications and therefore in need of acompact state-of-the-art introduction.
Heerlen/Maastricht, April 2006
Jan Bierhoff
Director EC/DC
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The market in and possibilities of mobile technologies is growing rapidlyworldwide. The level of innovation is high and new technologies, devices,applications and services emerge in a rapid manner. The number ofmobile users is increasing (worldwide) and has already surpassed thenumber of household's internet access. The roll-out of mobile broadbandaccess using access networks as UMTS, Wireless LAN is beginning toreach a critical mass for users that have terminals with multimedia anddata capabilities. The availability to contact with people at any time, andanyplace brings interesting possibilities for many areas. Two of theseareas are: tourism and government. When these disciplines arecombined with mobile technologies we refer to m-tourism and m-government respectively. In this document we present a desktop basedresearch overview in these areas.
TourismRelatively many initiatives have been found in the area of mobiletourism. Both indoor as well as outdoor services have been identified.Especially in museum settings a number of services are operational forsome time already. Many of the outdoor examples are location awareand/or location based services. These services take the location of theuser into account and use this information to adequately adapt theservice and/or information offering to the user. These location basedservices are often seen in the area of mobile tourist guides. These touristguides, in most cases, provide two important elements:
1. wayfinding support, routeplanning (e.g. find the nearest church)2. information on points of interest (e.g. style of the church, some
audio/video material about building)
Overall, there seem to be a lot of separate, stand alone initiatives. In theprojects that have been identified in this document, most of the casesthe central theme is related to the category of infotainment. Tourists canget travel directions, for example, in combination with interesting factsabout the points of interest they are about to experience. In somemuseum related applications, edutainment is seen as well in which it isimportant that a certain piece of information is 'learned' or understoodby means of a game for example.
Schwinger, W., et al (2005) conducted an in-depth survey on existing,web-based mobile tourism guides. Their evaluation framework usedparticular focus on context and adaptation. They found that muchdifferent functionality was thought of, but that none of themcomprehensively supports all their proposed criteria. There is a lack ofuse of standards, reusability, extensibility, and interoperability.
M-governmentThe widespread use and high penetration rate of mobile telephony (in theworld, compared to Internet penetration) combined with the highpersonal nature of mobile technologies seem to create interestingpossibilities for government services/applications as well. The number ofpeople having access to mobile phones and mobile internet (connection)is still increasing rapidly as well. Mobile access is becoming a common formany people and 'we' have become used to the anywhere, anyplace,anytime communication, information and entertainment society. Currently, a limited number of projects in the area of m-government arefunded by the European Union. More initiatives are seen in the differentgovernmental institutions/countries. Apparently many cities are attracted
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by the potential of mobile technologies as well. Obviously, this is a rathernew field; so many thresholds exist as well (e.g. security of the mobilechannel).
M-government is expected to have large potentials, but currently, fewsuccess stories exist in which the capabilities of mobile technologies havebeen exploited to the full potential. There is still lot's of need for researchand development in this area. There are a number of technicalchallenges that need to be taken for m-government to be successful, forexample, interoperability, security, and privacy. Besides the technicalchallenges, a number of organisational and/or cultural aspects need to betaken into consideration as well. This requires flexibility, open mindness,and willingness to change in the governmental spheres.
M-government should not be seen as a replacement for e-government,rather as a complement. M-government will most likely becomplementary to other (e) government services, and it should not beseen as THE solution for all kinds of services. Still, interestingopportunities can be seen with m-government.
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1 INTRODUCTION
The market in and possibilities of mobile technologies is growing rapidlyworldwide. The level of innovation is high and new technologies, devices,applications and services emerge in a rapid manner. The number ofmobile users is increasing (worldwide) and has already surpassed thenumber of household's internet access. The roll-out of mobile broadbandaccess using access networks as UMTS, Wireless LAN is beginning toreach a critical mass for users that have terminals with multimedia anddata capabilities. The availability to contact with people at any timeanyplace brings interesting possibilities for many areas. Two of theseareas are: tourism and government. When these disciplines arecombined with mobile technologies we refer to m-tourism and m-government respectively. In this document we are interested in the(European) initiatives that exist in these areas. Why these areas youmight ask? A number of reasons can be given for studying m-tourismand m-government:
M-tourism:
● When people are travelling, the navigation problem arises almost immediately. Mobile technologies can help people in finding their way in (strange or changing) environments.
● Being in an unfamiliar environment imposes information needs that can not always be anticipated upon. Mobile technologies, with multimedia and data processingcapabilities, can help people to get/find the information they need.
● The mobile is carried 24 hours aday by many people, so is 'always' at hand to access relevant information/ communication.
● Commercially seen tourists can be very attractive target groups.
● Personalisation is often considered as an added value, with mobile technologies, services can be tailored to the individual tourist. E.g. if a person is mainly interested in historical information, this can be taken into account when selecting/displaying information to that person.
M-government:
1. Mobile technologies are seen asa possible channel to decrease the digital divide caused by thefact that not everybody has access to a pc and/or internet connection. Mobile penetration has already surpassed internet penetration.
2. Mobile technologies allow for direct, person-to-person, communication.
3. Individuals can be informed and/or consulted directly any where and any time if needed. In case of emergencies, a dedicated person can be reached at any time, regardless of his/her current location.
4. Mobile technologies are in favour of young citizens. This might create opportunities for establishing a lower threshold for interacting with governmental institutions.
5. Advances in mobile technologies are growing very fast. So does the number of interaction channels that governments potentially can have with/from the citizens.
In these two areas, many different initiatives are seen from various (bothcommercial and non-commercial) organisations. The main focus andstructure in this document is on:
1. European funded projects in the 6th framework2. Initiatives in academia/industry
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The purpose of this document is to give an overview of theprojects/activities of European research in the areas of mobile tourismand m-government. The goal is to give an idea of current thinking, and itis not the intention to provide an exhaustive overview of these fields.Besides the projects identified and (partially) funded by the EuropeanUnion, interesting projects in academia, or the industry are highlightedas well. This is not an exhaustive overview neither, but more an overviewthat gives an idea of the state-of-the art in these domains and pointersto interesting initiatives. The results or other contents of the projects arenot discussed. References are given if more information about a specificproject is welcomed.
What is the 6th framework (Cordis, IST)?The Framework Programme (FP) is the European Union's maininstrument for funding projects in research and development. TheFramework programme provides founding for many (kinds of) projects.The FP is proposed by the European Commission and adopted by Counciland the European Parliament following a co-decision procedure.Framework Programmes have been implemented since 1984 and cover aperiod of five years with the last year of one Framework Programme andthe first year of the following Framework Programme overlapping. Thecurrent FP is FP6, which will be running up to the end of 2006. It isproposed that FP7 would run for seven years (from 2007 to 2013).Because of the (limited) number of projects in the areas of mobiletourism and m-government in FP6 only, some projects completed in FP5are shortly discussed as well to get an idea of the nature of the topics inEuropean research. For every funded project the Information SocietyTechnologies (IST) provides a fact sheet in which the most importantproject details are provided. In the discussion of the projects in thisdocument, often, these descriptions are given to stay close to the text inthe IST project descriptions. Pictures are taken for the project sites aswell as illustrations.
The European projects are available online throughhttp://www.cordis.lu/ist/. One of the 'methodologies' used for thisproject, is the search functionality of this site. Keywords that have beenused in the search box are: mobile, e-government, m-government,museum, exhibition, tourism, city, e-democracy, mobile government,location based.
This document is written for a number of target groups. Firstly for peopleinvolved in (commercial or governmental) activities and or projectsrelated to mtourism and/or m-government. Secondly, for researchers,and finally for people interested in exploring these two areas for generalinterest.
Obviously, this overview isdependent on the projectsthat were available on thetime this document wascreated. People who areinterested in having a sortof permanent informationprovisioning, can consultthe Mobile Research Forum(http://mrf.ecdc.info/).
The Mobile Research Forum can offer insight for people, who are ininterested in articles, news and/or studies in the area of mobiletechnologies.
Figure 1. Screenshot of the Mobile Research Forum
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2 PROJECTS IN THE AREA OF MOBILE TOURISM
As explained in the introduction various good reasons exist for studyingthe use of mobile technologies in the tourism industry. Tourists get todeal with a number of (complex) problems or challenges when theyencounter unfamiliar situations and environments (e.g. navigation, way-finding problems, language issues or information needs). Mobiletechnologies can provide an interesting channel for offering services andsolutions for travelling people and/or tourists.
This chapter is divided in projects identified in the 6th framework on theone hand and projects in industry/academy on the other hand.
2.1 6th framework projects on mobile tourism
Most of the text and information about the European projects have beentaken from the Information Society Technologies (IST) site(http://www.cordis.lu/ist/). Detailed information about the projects istaken from the project sheets that are created for every single project atthe Cordis site.
2.1.1 IM@GINE IT (completed)
The abbreviation stands for: Intelligent Mobility AGents, AdvancedPositioning and Mapping Technologies INtEgration InteroperableMulTimodal.
IM@GINE IT targets the facilitation ofseamless travel in Europe. Theproblem is that existing infomobilityservices are often only local,incomplete and offered by varyinguser interfaces and service deliveryplatforms. This project aims todevelop a one and single access point,through which the end user can obtainlocation-based, intermodal transportinformation (static and dynamic),
mapping and routing, navigation and other related services everywherein Europe, anytime, taking into account personal preferences of the user.
Key innovative features of IM@GINE IT include:● guidelines towards on-board compatible
and off-board user interfaces, ● the possibility to provide the service
through many different mobile devices (mobile phone, mobile PC, PDA, in-car device),
● a Multi-Agent System that recognises andeven learns user preferences and guides the systems
● ambient intelligence, an intelligent user localisation technique (combining GPS, Cell ID and logical localisation techniques),
● a common data management module for interfacing a wide range of contents,
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● the independency from transport mode (covering car, bus, train, metro, tram, ship, airplane, airport facilities and even tourist Poi's),
● an integrated route guidance approach (combining in-vehicle, pedestrian, PT-based and within-building route guidance modules),
● the development of common transport and tourism ontology's for semantic web applications,
● the centralised provision of integrated and dynamic services and the open interface to many existing systems;
● All within a common, modular and intuitive concept.
Thus, IM@GINE IT intends to be a universal platform, covering urban,interurban and cross border areas. The project started 18-12-2003 andwas completed recently on 31-12-2005. More information aboutIM@GINE IT can be found at:http://europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/esafety/doc/rtd_projects/fact_sheets/imagine_it.pdf
2.1.2 ALADDIN
Aladdin; targets mobile destination-management for SME's.
European SME in the tourism and travel industry in the destination areaare facing serious challenges from large international companies.Incoming-Tour-Operator, tourist offices, restaurants, museums aretypically SME's which need to provide different services for the samecustomer, the tourist, in a cost efficient but attractive way. Optimisedtour-transfer-setups, tailored offerings, the handling of last-time changesfor hotel-bookings are for Incoming Agencies the key issues to bear withthe near future upcoming trends of mixed individual / group travellingand highly volatile business-processes (last-minute-bookings andchanges of hotels and flights) that will increase the process-complexityand therefore the costs. In addition due to the rapid growth of mobileterminals (smart-phones, pocket-pc's) there will be also an substantialmobile marketplace for leisure services in the destination area but highlydifferent device-types make it almost unaffordable for service SME's inthe destination to participate in that new mobile marketplace.
Aladdin aims at developing a mobiledestination system that combines both, theprovisioning of a Mobile Incoming TourOperator workspace and a Mobile Content-and Service-Management for Destinations.The Aladdin Destination ManagementSystem will provide on the one handincoming tour operators with an optimisedand cost-efficient mobile workspace thatsupports their business-processes andallows small companies to compete withlarger incoming-tour-operators. On theother hand, Aladdin aims to allow SME's in the destination, such as localservice and commercial companies, to offer their services and content inan attractive and easy accessible way to the customers. Thereby Aladdinwill consider different usage scenarios, having in mind on one side anageing society with the growing demand for safety, on the other side ayoung generation with their well established mobile behaviour.The project started 01-08-2005 and has a duration of 24 months.More information can be found at: http://www.aladdin-project.org/aladdin/publicdocu.html
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2.1.3 ASK-IT
Ambient Intelligence System of Agents for Knowledge-based andIntegrated Services for Mobility Impaired users
Mobility Impaired (Ml) people have a wide varietyof functional limitations, from different types ofphysical impairments to activity limitations. ICTsystems following the "design for all" andadequate content are required, so as to takeadvantage of both internet and mobile-basedservices. ASK-IT aims to establish AmbientIntelligence (Ami) in semantic web enabledservices, to support and promote the mobility ofthe Mobility Impaired people, enabling the
provision of personalised, self-configurable, intuitive and context-relatedapplications and services and facilitating knowledge and contentorganisation and processing. Within it, Ml people related info mobilitycontent is collected, interfaced and managed in SP1 (Content for All),encompassing transport, tourism and leisure, personal support services,work, business and education, social relations and community buildingrelated content. To offer the content, a number of advanced tools aredeveloped within SP2 (Tools for All), such as enhanced accuracylocalisation, accessible intermodal route guidance modules and interfacesto eCommerce/ePayment, domotics, health and emergency management,driver support, computer accessibility, eWorking, eLearning systems andassistive devices. Content and tools are integrated within an AmbientIntelligent Framework (SP3), by a Multi Agent System of IntelligentAgents and a self-configurable User Interface, that offer servicepersonalisation according to user profile, habits, preferences and contextof use. This framework is interoperable in terms of mobile devices, localand wide area networks used, entrusted and based on intuitive web-semantics; thus offering seamless and device independent serviceeverywhere. The integrated ASK-IT service and system will be tested in 7interconnected sites Europe wide in SP4 (Accessible Europe), to provethat full travel accessibility for Ml users can be achieved in a reliable andviable manner.
The project started 01-10-2004 and will run for many years (according tothe fact sheet on the Cordis site until 2080). More information can beachieved by visiting http://www.ask-it.org.
2.1.4 TNT; The Neanderthalers
Transforming Representational Cultural Heritage into Digital MediaPopular Scientific Content and Developing A Visual Simulation Engine forCollaborative Real-time Exploration
TNT is a combined RTD- anddemonstration project. It has atechnology -, service - and applicationstrand. Technology-wise, TNT developsa Visual Simulation Engine, calledVISICORE. VISICORE enablesresearchers in different locations tocollectively explore and modify digitalmodels of artefacts, sensor scans andother scientific data. VISICORE willalso enable media companies to applysuch technologies in commercialdigital media applications.
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Service-wise, TNT will establish NESPOS - The Neanderthal SpeciesProfessional Exploration Service. NESPOS will streamline businessprocesses in a range of European Natural History museums and willimprove distributed collaborative working among European pre-historians. Application-wise, TNT will create the ARCH Channel - a crossmedia popular science channel for intelligent heritage and culturaltourism whose goal is to transform (pre)-historic and other archaeologyrelated representational content into commercially viable and tourismrelated digital media applications accessible from a range of Internet andmobile portals.
TNT will show how multiple forces can be combined to push the limits ofresearch collaboration and media generation. While the VISICOREsimulation technologies are applicable universally, in TNT they are usedto improve access to Europe's cultural heritage, to promote intelligentheritage and tourism applications and to open up new revenue streams.VISICORE will be used to digitise, visualise, exchange and exploreartefacts and objects from four European Natural History Museumsspecialising on the Neanderthal man. The content will then berepackaged and enhanced with different content and services from othersources to serve as kernel and reference application for a homogeneous(sub)-channel within tourism and archaeology related b-2-c portals.Finally, a role model is derived detailing how representational culturalheritage content may be transformed into digital media applications. More information about the TNT project is available at http://www.the-neanderthal-tools.org.
2.1.5 PHENIX-SSA
This project aims to set-up a Europe-china co-operation for the deliveryof innovative multimedia, audiovisual interactive services for mobiledevices (based on DVB and MPEG international standards).
To prepare for future international co-operation in IST Chinese andEuropean partners propose to study the potential of cooperation for astandard-based solution for the broadcasting and streaming of advancedinteractive multimedia and audiovisual services for mobile devices. Theseservices are to be launched for the 2008 Beijing Olympics Games.
The aims of the project are: ● to survey and assess present market
situations and future prospects for the targeted services,
● to reinforce the cooperation between Euro-China partners,
● to promote the use of the relevant international standards (DVB-H, MPEG-4/7,etc.),
● to prepare for future cooperative Research and Development projects and business ventures.
The following work is proposed: ● A survey of the commercial potential of
innovative multimedia, audio-visual interactive services towards mobile devicesin China,
● A DVB-H opportunity study in the context of multimedia mobile services in China and an assessment versus alternative solutions,
Figure 2. Possible screen ofTennis match
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● The set-up of mock-ups that will allow demonstrating the spirit of the targeted services,
● The organization of Seminars to be held in Paris and Beijing on “Delivering innovative multimedia, audio-visual services towards mobile devices in China” to raise awareness among a wide audience ofspecialists and non specialists on the great potential of a Euro China co-operation for the launch of innovative multimedia, audio-visual interactive services towards mobile devices (based on DVB and MPEG international standards) on the occasion of the future Olympic games in 2008.
The Project started 13-05-2005, the end date is not available (but itseems as if the project is near to completion). More information on theproject, including video demonstrations of the (video on demand)services and results, can be found on: http://www.ist-phenix.org. Aninteresting project deliverable (addressing user needs, market surveys,and business analysis) can be found on http://www.ist-phenix.org/pdf/PHX_WP1_D1.1_11Feb.pdf.
2.1.6 WALKONWEB
Interactive Roadmap for Long Distance Rambling, cross-media contentfor leisure and entertainment
Hiking - or rambling - is becoming moreand more popular as a leisure activityacross Europe. Hiking gear hasmodernised, gained flexibility and lostweight. GPS devices for ramblers aregaining popularity. Since three and a halfdecades, the European RamblersAssociation has been active in theintegration of national long-distancehiking trails into a European-widenetwork of trans-frontier footpaths. In spite of these valuable efforts,information about these footpaths is still very diverse in terms of source,structure, availability and language.
This is why it is still difficult for cross-frontier hikers to get all the hikingpath information they need. WalkOnWeb wants to overcome theseproblems by integrating existing information about European longdistance walking paths, by defining a new business model based onelectronic publishing of this information and by developing the necessaryapplications for the online and mobile consultation and maintenance ofhiking trail info. Descriptions of trails - now published on paper bynational or regional organisations - will be transformed into astandardised XML-based format that can be accessed on mobile devicesthat hikers carry. An interactive geographic map will enable users tosearch for and navigate through paths. Tourist info such as hostels,restaurants and shops, will be integrated. At home, users can print allinformation about a trail on paper or download it to a mobile device,which will guide the rambler throughout the trail. Authors of pathdescriptions will be able to edit their work online. By introducing anelectronic publishing system for their hiking path descriptions, ramblersassociations will move towards a new business model. WalkOnWeb willstudy issues that might arise in such a model, such as copyrights,intellectual property rights and system maintenance. Based on this work,the project will define the business model enabling the future economicviability of the electronic publishing framework.
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An interactive geographical card will enable users to search hiking pathsand to navigate through them. Tourist information about hotels,restaurants, or shops is integrated.
The main goals of the project are:● To associate hiking tracks/paths with related information from multiple
sources (e.g. geographical data, tourist information, path descriptions)● To create a user friendly system that allows hikers to consult all
relevant information● To create a system that allows easily editing, maintenance and
integration of (tourist) information in a collaborative manner (different people can be the joint author of a path)
● To define a business model the online publishing and consulting of hiking information.
The interactive guide consists of two parts: a "hiking planner" and the"Mobile hiking assistant". These applications have a number of functions:the "hiking planner" will:● Search for hiking paths in the area by means of characteristics as
distance, duration, differences in height, historical points of interest and geographical location
● Enable to walk through paths that are visible on a geographical card● To export detailed information (e.g. to paper, mobile, PDA, document)
The Walking assistant can help the hiker to navigate by giving detailed information about the current location and the subsequent path. Al this is possible in a user friendly system in which (networks ofdifferent) people can add/exchange tourist information.
A comprehensive overview of current solutions (mostly websites or cd-roms) and/or walking organisations available in the hiking sector iscreated in Walkon web as well on the project site:(http://canada.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/WalkOnWeb/download/WP7_Using_a_Walk_Ontology_for_Capturing_Language_Independent_Navigation_Instructions_1.0.doc?SessionID=000000000000000&id=uniqueid).
This project started in October 2004 and is expected to finish by endMarch 2007. More information can be found onhttp://www.walkonweb.org.
2.1.7 MAPPED
Mobilisation and Accessibility Planning for People with Disabilities.
Many disabled users are prevented from accessing functionally andsocially important activities such as shopping, visiting public parks,theatres etc. because of a lack of real-time accessibility knowledge.Currently the simplest of excursions can involve military scale planning toensure that the planned journey is feasible. Moreover, accessibility issuesmay affect everyone, including people travelling with children, temporarydisabilities, elderly people, or people with heavy luggage etc. MAPPEDwill provide users the ability to plan excursions from any point to anyother point, at any time, using public transport, their own vehicle,walking, or using a wheelchair, taking into consideration all theiraccessibility needs. In addition to this, MAPPED will provide the userswith location-based services tailored to their accessibility needs.
To meet these goals MAPPED will incorporate:1. A multi-modal route planner that allows for disability specific routing
information and reservation of accessibility services
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2. Geographically indexed accessibility information3. Disabled friendly mobile user interfaces MAPPED will "develop an
intelligent system that will empower persons with disabilities to play afull role in society and to increase their autonomy".
In order to develop a system with the potential to become a Europeanstandard for providing this information, we will establish four majordemonstration sites in separate countries: the County of Hampshire UK,and the City of Dublin. More information on Mapped can be found at:http://services.txt.it/MAPPED/
2.1.8 MOBVIS
Vision Technologies and Intelligent Maps for Mobile Attentive Interfacesin Urban Scenarios
This project identifies the key issue for the realisation of smart mobilevision services to be the application of context to solve otherwiseintractable vision tasks. In order to achieve this challenging goal,MOBVIS claims that three components should be combined for the firsttime into an innovative system; the attentive interface:1. Multi-modal context awareness, 2. Vision based object recognition, and 3. Intelligent map technology.
In multi-modal interfacedesign, "Attentive UserInterfaces" are an emergingparadigm with the emphasisto generate interfacecontrol directing attentionin human and machine.MOBVIS conceptually andfunctionally extends thisframework to "AttentiveInterfaces" that involvemachine attentionmechanisms, i.e., to
selectively index into information spaces dependent on a given userrelevant context. The attentive interface would be the only possible wayto cut down the numerous systems' hypotheses on the real world, byfirst aggregating context information, and then applying context to makemobile vision based object awareness feasible, and incremental updatingof map based geo-information to provide a knowledge base for futurecontext exploitation.
The project goal is research; to identify and investigate on keychallenges for the development of mobile vision interfaces, and providinga demonstrator interface that is attentive to objects of interest in urbanscenarios, such as, buildings, infrastructure, faces, cars, and informative
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icons and text. The detected objects will together define contextualsituations, they cue to expected places, and objects, information andevents, and they feed into an augmented digital map representation, asa basis for enriched smart services in personal assistance for the mobileand automotive industry. Mobile vision will become a fundamentaltechnology for enhanced perceptive presence, context aware andattentive interfaces, and urban environments provide the scenarios foremerging applications.
This project started 01-05-2005 and is expected to finish by 30-04-2008.More information about Mobvis can be found here:http://www.mobvis.org.
2.1.9 EXPLORE
Gaming and guiding system for Museum and Exhibition Environments.
The objective of this project is todevelop a location-sensitive,interactive, guiding, infotainment,and entertaining system for museumenvironments. Also new media will beused to provide information to thevisitors. Visitors can experiencevirtual tours, get information, andplay games (trivia).
The positioning is based on Bluetoothtechnology and the terminal deviceused is the visitors own mobile
phone. This system is scalable to various sizes of museums andexhibitions and it can be built on various data management platforms.
The social objectives are to raise attendance and attractiveness ofmuseums and cultural exhibitions, especially among the youngsters in acompetition against other entertainment services and also offering multi-lingual experience thus offering better service for foreign exhibitionvisitors on the other hand. This system enables the networking ofEuropean museums through Internet and thus emphasising thecommunal aspects between European countries as well as betweenindividuals visiting exhibition at same time.
The project started February 2004 and was completed recently inOctober 2005. A presentation with more information on Explore can befound here: http://museumsnett.no/icommpr/html-files/papers/scholliers.pdf. Another website build in the project providesinteresting scenarios etc as well http://explore.do.isst.fraunhofer.de.
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2.2 Completed projects about mobile tourism (e.g. in 5th Framework)
A number of interesting (completed) projects in FP5 have been identifiedas well. Mind that this list is by no means exhaustive, but has theintention to give an illustrative overview.
2.2.1 M-toGuide
Mobile tourism guide
The m-ToGuide project is targeted for the European tourism market andwill offer tourists a broad array of information and services. Touristsrequire accurate, current and relevant information about a multitude oftopics, e.g. sites, accommodations, restaurants, performances,schedules, routes, guide support, history. Such need clearly indicates thegreat potential for use by tourists of travel and touring information andrelated services. The innovation of the m-ToGuide service is that it is acurrent, comprehensive and mobile electronic tourist information guide.The tourist has available to him/her the most relevant and current data.Use of m-ToGuide enables its user to gain immediate access toinformation or services that he/she is seeking, e.g. attractions, shopping,places of interest, directions. For instance, the m-ToGuide can show thetourist his/her location, using the most suitable format of map orphotograph. It might then direct him/her to the next point and identifythe best method of available transportation. Further, m-ToGuide wouldpropose a list of worthwhile attractions or entertainment options whichare near-by and relevant in time. Should the tourist accept, m-ToGuidewould propose purchasing him/her tickets or placing a reservation. Them-ToGuide system incorporates intelligent decision processing.
A portable, handheld terminal is used toexchange information between the m-ToGuide system and the tourist. M-ToGuide has developed a prototypepromoting the use of 2.5/3G cellularnetworks with location-based services. Itdirects the tourist (the city traveller) viaGPS and offers location-specific multimediainformation about Points of Interests(Poi's). It also allows for transactions (e.g.buying a ticket). It provides on the spotnavigation support as well as pre-planning
support and after support by means of a diary function (record personalimpressions). A user profile is used to compare user's preferences withinteresting Poi's. Three European cities hosted the system's field trials.
The m-ToGuide application objectives are:
● maintain up-to-date information; ● location-based services related to the tourist's status in place and
time;● high quality multimedia format; ● tour planning; ● audio-visual tour guiding; ● routing and orientation capabilities; ● reservation & ticketing services;● promotions, special offers, and discounts.
The project was completed in the end of 2003.
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2.2.2 Crumpet
Crumpet aims at the Creation of User-friendly Mobile Servicespersonalized for Tourism relying on particularly on agent technology. With Crumpet, the user can request information about tourist attractions,restaurants and tours. The system provides pro-active tips when the usergets near a sight that might be of interest, supports interactive maps,showing the position of the user as well as points of interest. The user'spreferences are used to adapt the (presentation of) contents. A largepart of the project was focused on trialling and evaluating the concept.
The main functionality is:● Recommendation of services, e.g. tourist
attractions (based on personal interests and the vicinity to the current location)
● Interactive maps (overview maps of the area, highlighting the current position of the user; maps highlighting sites of interest and tours; maps can be panned and zoomed)
● Information about tourist attractions (shorttext, more detailed information, maps, directions and pictures)
● Proactive tips, giving an unobtrusive tip when the user gets near a site that might interest him or her.
An interesting article about CRUMPET is available http://www.i3mainz.fh-mainz.de/publicat/enter2003/Schmidt-Belz-zipf-etal-LBS-mobile-tourist.pdf.
2.2.3 Eureauweb
Eureauweb is a service for thosewho visit the inland waterways ofEurope, available both at homeand 'on the move' - providinginformation and communicationsthat are relevant to where youare, and in line with your specificinterests. Eureauweb will filterinformation to suit your particularneeds (based on your answers ofa questionnaire). Items of interestwill be shown on the map; simplyclick on an item (for example, arestaurant) to view informationsuch as opening times, menus,
and directions. It enables you to plan your waterways-related activitiesfrom the comfort of your home; download relevant maps and informationto a mobile device; and access the information on the move. It usesstate-of-the-art communications and Global Satellite Positioning toupdate the information as you travel. Eureauweb continually shows yourcurrent location (by means of satellite positioning) and providesinformation related to your location. As you move, the information aboutyour area is automatically adapted on the screen. Moreover, it is possibleto store pictures and notes on the Eureauweb from the mobile service.This can provide a lasting memory record of your visit. When the trip isover, you are able to look back over the trips from home in a personalinternet-based logbook.
Figure 3 Crumpet interface
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The project was carried out between 01-03-2002 and 31-08-2005. Moreinformation on the project can be found on http://www.eureauweb.com.And on the Cordis site as well: http://icadc.cordis.lu/fep-cgi/srchidadb?ACTION=D&CALLER=PROJ_IST&QM_EP_RCN_A=61833
2.2.4 Loveus
Location aware visually enhanced ubiquitous service, Sightseeing withyour personal mobile guide
Text and photographs crowd the pages of tourist guides. Yet one in fivevisitors abroad can't be bothered to buy one and fewer still use themevery time they travel. Figures such as these convinced partners in theproject LoVEUS that today's travellers want more for their money. The aim of LoVEUS is to provide European citizens with ubiquitousservices for personalised, tourism-oriented multimedia informationrelated to the location and orientation within cultural sites or urbansettings, occasionally enriched with relevant advertisements. The project's multimedia solution to guidebook fatigue runs on personaldigital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones. By tracking a user's exactlocation and orientation, these devices can offer exciting new tourism-type services. They include a guided city tour, photos and videos, andeven tailored adverts.
The main objectives of Loveus are:● To design, implement and evaluate a system that allows a service for
the European citizen to become available, namely the provision of location and orientation sensitive multimedia information delivery (withstrong focus on information visualization) to the user's new generationmobile terminal device.
● To develop a user friendly, ubiquitous mobile next generation terminal that integrates the mobile phone, Portable Digital Assistant (PDA) and wearable computer technologies and features into one, enhanced by the presence of a Global Positioning System (GPS) and a digital compass.
● To provide, through this basic infrastructure, a new paradigm for promoting tourism, cultural heritage as well as commercial services, exploiting and expanding the ideas of location aware services.
The project will present theaccomplishments in the form of anapplication system that will bedemonstrated with a number oflocation aware value added servicesbased on 'next generation' sensitivemaps. These VASs include streamedmultimedia services for Culturalheritage, personalised advertisement,visually enhanced navigation andguidance. Services are delivered overthe Internet and mobile phonenetworks.
Trials took place in central Athens,Greece, in late 2003. Volunteerscarried PDAs. These had a mobileconnection (2.5G) card and werelinked by cable to a global positioningsystem (GPS) device. At any time users could look up points of interest -such as Hadrian's Arch or the Parliament building - and download text,
Figure 4. Loveus screen capture
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JPEG images or MPEG4 videos describing them. They could check theirlocation on the on-screen map or navigate their way round the city. Theycould see panoramas of famous Syntagma Square or view archaeologicalsites in their former splendour, thanks to 3D reconstructions or'augmentations'.
LoVEUS will focus on the following value adding services:
● Interactive, ubiquitous tourism guides: LoVEUS will allow European travellers that use an enhanced next generation mobile terminal device to view on the display interactive, ubiquitous tourism guides. The images received on the user's terminal will be personalised, matching their individual preferences and accompanied by equally personalised (in terms of language selection and content focus) audio information. Such guides will increase the "readability" of monuments and museums by providing at any given time reconstructions and augmented views of monuments, but also the possibility to obtain a tour suggestion with the appropriate guidance.
● Visually enhanced city navigation through new generation city maps: The next generation terminal will allow easy navigation within the city and will provide additional information to the simple positioning within a map. It will provide guidance for the user in termsof available facilities of interest as well as information about thesignificant parts of the city.
● Promotion of commercial services through visually enhanced advertisements: Given the location of the user, and their individual preferences, the system will deliver relevant visually enhanced "infomercials" on the user's display.
A user study is done on the Loveus services and scenarios; this document is publicly available on http://loveus.intranet.gr/docs/loveus_d02_v10.doc. More information on the overall project is available onhttp://loveus.intranet.gr.
2.2.5 Regeo
Mobile tourists in touch with nature
Planning a visit to one of Europe's remote nature reserves? Aninformation system under development by the REGEO project will allowyou to plan hiking routes in 3D from your PC or access local restaurantsover a PDA once you havearrived. Four differentnature parks in Austria, theCzech Republic, Germanyand Poland tested a geo-multimedia informationsystem, based on mainlyfour components that canwork independently.
The Web application is basedon the integration of theopen source ZOPEapplication server and theopen source 'Minnesota mapserver', a widespread tool Figure 5. Regeo
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for Web map creation. The application requests data from the virtualgeo-multimedia database. It reads Geography Mark-up Language (GML)from the database and creates an internal representation for the ZOPEcontent management system (CMS) that can be presented in a browserover the Web. The CMS contains a 3D viewer that displays selectedfeatures like hiking tours draped over the virtual terrain model, as wellas a 2D map viewer. A German language prototype is currently availableusing data from the Thayatal National Park in Austria, with eventually anEnglish prototype as well.
Another component, the Virtual Geo-Multimedia Database and ExchangeFramework, enables customers to store, retrieve and share all kinds ofgeo-referenced multimedia content. Through the use of the openinterface standard tourism boards, nature park management and regionaleconomic bodies in eco-tourism can easily integrate the Geo-MultimediaInfrastructure in their domain specific applications like tourist informationsystems. The infrastructure offers a set of Web service functions forsearching and retrieving geo-referenced multimedia objects. Data can beuploaded into the system either by using a separate Web service offeringan import facility or using the built-in transaction protocol.
Another aspect is mobility. The project uses CD-ROMs to storemultimedia content not transmitted over the Net such as virtual overflights and 3D models. REGEO has also planned that information storedon PDAs can be updated via Internet-connected PCs or from terminalstations in national parks, a useful feature in remote areas whereUMTS/GPRS is not really available.
The fourth element uses the latest visualisation techniques used tocreate virtual 3D worlds visible in a 3D viewer in the shockwave format.This includes techniques such as the fusion of satellite images of differentresolutions, draping of digital elevation models with natural texture (i.e.aerial images) or with artificial texture (i.e. computer generated 3Dobjects).
REGEO is also an ideal presentation platform for local enterprises such ashotels, restaurants, sports facilities and suppliers of local specialties, asthey are directly connected with tourists both before and during theirstay. Advanced 'anywhere-anytime' accessibility will maximise holidayplanning capabilities for tourists by offering up-to-date information onaccommodation and daily activities. Nature reserves and travel agencies,meanwhile, can provide both extensively detailed and attractivelypresented information, allowing for heightened planning capabilities andincreased appeal of destinations. The tourist interviews conducted insummer 2003 - available in English, German, Czech, and Polish, andaccessible online as well as in the project's test regions - examined whattourists' need and want from a tourist information system.
More information can be found on: http://www.felis.uni-freiburg.de/regeo/English.
2.2.6 Webpark
GEographically relevant information for moBile users in Protected AReas
Webpark developed a platform that enables the deployment of Location-based services in nature areas like national parks. It focuses on providingvisitors of protected and recreation areas with location-aware services. This project takes into account the visitor's needs as well as the parkneeds:
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● Increasing nature awareness (one of the main aims). ● Reaching visitors (information supply). ● Controlling visitors (supply POI and trails). ● Monitor visitor's walkabouts (more popular trails, sensitive areas). ● Understanding visitors (what do they like?). ● Inventory tools (for rangers to collect information). ● Exclude signs (cleaner environment and saves money).
These services can enhance thequality of the user experienceand facilitate the protection ofhabitats and natural resourcesby better informing users ontheir surroundings. It createdthe possibility to provideinformation to the visitors ofnature areas through the use ofsmart phones and GPS. TheWebPark guide is a mobilewebsite that has dynamiccontent that changes with thevisitors' location, time andinterests.
The most obvious use for this technology is the possibility to respond toquestions in the field, like: "What's the name of this plant?" or "Whatanimals can I find around me?" The system warns users about somethinginteresting in their vicinity. Other uses are environmental education anda new channel for (reselling) the park information.
A distinction is made between general, freely accessible services andpay-per-use services. Micro payments are based on an Internet walletaccount where individuals can establish a cash balance. Premiumservices, that require a user subscription,will provide additional personalizationcapabilities and also push services, suchas weather changes or avalanche alarms.
Two full implementations of WebParkhave been created: one for the SwissNational Park and one for the WaddenSea area in The Netherlands. Visitors ofthese parks have tested the applicationsnumerous times, and based on theirfeedback the system has been graduallyimproved. Among other things, userswere able to see themselves walk on themap, get multi-media information on theflora, fauna and the facilities in theirdirect surrounding and createpersonalised spatial bookmarks thatwere visible to other users.
This project was completed end 2004. More information about thisproject can be found here: http://www.webparkservices.info.
2.2.7 PALIO
Personalised Access to Local Information and services for tOurists
The PALIO is an annual horse race in Siena drawing thousands of tourists
Figure 6. Webpark
Figure 7. Interface Webpark
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from across Europe. Hotels are packed, tourist officescrowded and public transport disrupted. Visitors tothis Italian city - like those to any city or touristdestination - can easily become disorientated, notknowing how to find a hotel or the right bus into thecity. PALIO is also an IST project that aims to ensuretourists always know where they are and wherethey're going. Developed by a consortium of tencompanies, research organisations and local administrations from four EUcountries and tested in Siena and on the Greek island of Crete, thePALIO system offers real-time access to tourist information fromanywhere, anytime. Need a hotel? PALIO can check for vacancies over amobile phone. Need information on a museum? PALIO can provide it on aPDA. Need travel times or bus routes? Hook up to the system from alaptop with wireless access or from a fixed terminal in a tourist office.
PALIO is location aware, ensuring that information relates to a user'sposition in a city or tourist resort. PALIO on the other hand is available24/7, provides all tourist-related information and is accurate up to theminute. More information on this project can be found at: http://www.t-6.it/fetish/resources/file/Palio.pdf , andhttp://www.cs.concordia.ca/~seffah/ihm2001/papers/zarikas.pdf,
2.2.8 PEPTRAN
Pedestrian and public transport navigator, Route planners get street wise
Getting around in cities, especially unfamiliar ones can be problematic.Even in places with good public transport, people struggle to work outthe ideal route from A to B. Juggling with paper maps and timetables forbuses, trains and trams is nobody's idea of fun. Encouraging city-dwellers
to abandon their cars is tough aswell. They want journeys thatare quick and painless -adjectives that few driversassociate with public transport.Yet recent trials in Europe, of anavigation system to organiseurban trips in a smarter manner,suggest two to three per cent ofpeople would definitely hop on alocal bus or train more often.
PEPTRAN will develop software to guide a user from point to point withina city, walking and using public transport in the most efficient manner.The complete route assembled on the devices takes into account theuser's location, public transport timetables and, where possible, liveinformation about the progress of public transport vehicles. In caseswhere it also allows use of a car, drivers are first guided to a Park andRide spot. They leave their vehicle at this car park before continuingtheir trip by public transport. Alternative but possibly more time-consuming routes are also suggested, for example involving fewerchanges of vehicle or shorter walking distances.Trials of the system took place in the Italian city of Turin and inWinchester, in the UK. Volunteers were given the handheld or thespecially kitted-out Fiat car and told to experiment by making tripsaround their city.
More information is available at http://82.43.18.3/pepwww/main.asp and http://icadc.cordis.lu/fep-cgi/srchidadb?ACTION=D&CALLER=PROJ_IST&QM_EP_RCN_A=56912
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2.2.9 M-guide
Offering tailored tourist information for mobiles
The eContent project M-Guide hasdeveloped and deployed an integratedsystem for the provision of location-basedinformation services for the cultural citiesof Athens and Turku, Finland - with aspecial focus on customised touristinformation. The project intends to build acommercial service for mobile devicesthat addresses the needs of Europeancitizens who travel around in Europe andare interested to explore the culturalheritage of the visited countries. The project work is based on existingstate-of-the-art technological modules and telecommunicationinfrastructures, and will facilitate the exploitation of market opportunities.More information of this completed project can be found at:http://www.exodus.gr/m-guide.
2.2.10 Ambiesense
Ambient assistance for travellers
Imagine wireless context tags mounted inside shop windows, furniture orbeside statues supplying content to your PDA as you walk through anairport or an old city centre. Such is the vision of ambient intelligencerecently tested by the project Ambiesense. The project, which wascompleted in October 2004, has developed a system of context tagslinked with digital content. Placed at strategic locations in a givenenvironment, the tags communicate information to users relevant to theirsurroundings remotely from a content provider via Bluetooth or WLAN.The main user sites chosen for testing the AMBIESENSE system were theOslo Airport and the old city centre of Seville.
In the old city centre of Seville in Spain,meanwhile, context tags have beeninstalled in the local shops, restaurants,historic sites, and hotels for user testpurposes. Information focused on thelocal culture and history, where to shop,eat, stay, sleep, and how to walkaround to experience the city pop up onthe mobile as the people walk pastthem.
Small electronic context tags are mounted everywhere - in buildings,within shops and restaurants, in vehicles, hidden in furniture, in userclothes, and even outdoors. The context tags automatically send thecontextual information about the surroundings to the mobile users whotravel. The effect is that the user is relieved from specifying the contextaround him. Context tags can be networked and integrated with existingcomputers and wireless network infrastructures. Information is providedonly when the user is in the proximity of a certain tag. Access todifferent information is thus depending of user's interests and the currentcontext and location. More information can be found at the Cordissheet:http://icadc.cordis.lu/fep-cgi/srchidadb?ACTION=D&CALLER=PROJ_IST&QM_EP_RCN_A=61513or at: http://www.ambiesense.com.
Figure 8. Mobile in proximity of tag
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2.2.11 AGAMEMNON
Personalised visit to museums and archaeological sites for tourists
3G mobile phones equipped withembedded cameras making use ofgraphical interfaces and voice-basedcommands, which will personalisevisits to archaeological sites andmuseums, are being developed by theproject AGAMEMNON. The innovativephone will provide an information-enriched experience, whilstcontributing to the preservation ofcultural heritage. With the 3G phones,visitors will be able to take pictures of objects which they are interestedin and to pass them on to a server, which then sends additionalinformation back to the mobile phone - in form of SMS, voice comments,videos, or images such as 3D reconstructions. AGAMEMNON also helpsvisitors to plan the circuit according to their personal interests. Moreinformation is available on http://services.txt.it/agamemnon.
2.2.12 Wh@M
World in you H@nds on the move (On hand information for the mobiletraveller)
Whether touring museums in Madrid, island hopping in Greece or skiingin Finland, the WH@M project promises to make travellers' livesconsiderably easier through an innovative multi-source informationservice accessible over mobile devices. WH@M integrated and tested asuite of software modules capable of gathering information from a widerange of public and private sources and disseminating it over theInternet, mobile phones and PDAs. The information services are user-defined and location-specific, providing tourists with up-to-the-minuteinformation on weather forecasts, traffic conditions, hotel vacancies orthe closest restaurant.
In Madrid, the project partners set up a city information service, coveringthe Spanish capital's historic sites and museums as well as itsrestaurants, bars and hotels. In Greece, a similar service focused onregional coverage, providing information on air and sea transport. Whilein the arctic resort of Levi in Finland, the service focused on the area'smany outdoor activities. In all three test sites the system incorporatedreal-time services, such as weather, traffic and public transportinformation - perhaps the most important type of information for anytraveller on the move. In addition, the itinerary calculator is capable ofgiving directions from a user's location to a selected site of interest.Unlike many similar information systems, tourists can also use WH@M tocommunicate among themselves, sharing experiences and picking upfirst-hand travel tips through a message forum - an especially usefulinformation source for independent travellers. More information can befound at: http://icadc.cordis.lu/fep-cgi/srchidadb?ACTION=D&CALLER=PROJ_IST&QM_EP_RCN_A=56841
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2.2.13 TellMaris
Development of a 3D-map interface for tourist information on mobilecomputers
TellMaris is a prototype of a mobile tourist guidethat was developed at Nokia Research Center.One of the first mobile systems that combinesthree-dimensional graphics with two-dimensionalmaps and that runs on a mobile phone. In thesummer of 2002 a first exploration field test wasdone.
At sea, when you approach land? Tellmaris'prototype system provides up-to-date 3Dinformation to orient sailors as and when theydock. The TellMarisOnBoard prototype runs on alaptop, and supports sailors and boat tourists withinformation while travelling at sea as well. Thesystem provides 3D navigation and vitalinformation about the entrance of harbours, withregular weather forecasts to supplement thespatial information. In addition the system
provides searchable tourist information which is kept up-to-date over theInternet. Coupled to GPS it gives the sailor a 3D landscape view of thesurrounding landscape with 3D buildings, trees, topography, seamarks(buoys and lighthouses). The system is different from other applicationsfor laptops in that the data is not loaded from CD or diskette, butdynamically downloaded using mobile technology, keeping theinformation constantly up-to-date.
2.2.14 Tourserv
Technology brings winter tourists in from the cold An e-commerce solution developed for Alpine tourism combininggeographical 3D information with actual offers for visitors has met withsuccess and is being extended to other tourist regions. In TourServ, a portal site was developed and tested in the Italian winterresort of Scopello, available for use by foreign travel agents and touristson site to prepare actual and relevant information tips. Among theinformation supplied are travel, weather, events, culture, and recreationtogether with added-value services for booking and payment. Moreover,tourists travelling with a device with Internet access (handheldcomputers, or mobile phones with UMTS) are supplied with three-dimensional maps. These maps are related via GPS to the currentlocation of the recreational activity. This allows the tourist to receivecontinuous updates about:
● Routes and ski-runs in the region● The location and current offers of restaurants and hotels● Ski lifts with e.g. current waiting times● The current regional weather forecasts● The mountain patrol e.g. about warnings
All screen presentations on the customer's computer were realised withthe newest multimedia technologies. Virtual reality (VRML) is used toshow offerings such as hotel rooms. 3D geographic information systemtechnology is used to animate the maps of the region and to access theunderlying information from stationary and mobile platforms.
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2.2.15 DIETORECS
Intelligent Recommendation for Tourist Destination Decision makingThe main objective of the project is to develop and validate arecommendation system for destination decision-making. It will providepersonalized recommendations based on user profile and contextualinformation. It will be interactive and "conversational" adapting thedialogue process as it learns more about the user. The dialogue will bedriven by a tourist destination selection decision-making model. It willsupport product aggregation for a given destination in the form of a"travel plan" that can be used to support the user during the travel(recall events, advise on traffic condition, etc.) by means of his/herportable phone. The project will bring innovative results in the area ofCase-Based Recommendation Systems and Tourist Decision Modelling.
The key components are: ● dialogue management based on the tourist decision model; ● similarity based queries; ● filtering using a user model; ● user activity logging.
More information about this, in 2004, completed project can be found athttp://dietorecs.itc.ithttp://dietorecs.itc.it/ProjectSummary.html
2.2.16 VeGame
Venice Game; an interactive mobile game that enhances cultural tourism The ELIOS group at the University of Genoa has introduced an innovationby combining their extensive knowledge of multimedia tourist guides withnew mobile gaming technologies. One of the results is Venice Game(VeGame) which, in terms of hardware, is a pocket-sized PC made up ofa Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and cellular phone. The softwareapplication is a multimedia game that offers a kind of 'electronic treasurehunt' through the narrow streets of Venice. As visitors make their wayalong a designated 3km track, they are presented with a series ofquizzes and enigmas on Venetian art and history. The route it proposes isoff the busy tourist track, bringing visitors into contact with lesserknown, though nonetheless fascinating, and treasures of this world-renowned city. The structure of the game resembles a sort of treasurehunt. Different types of games are included: for example; historical quiz,visual quiz, right place, couples, dialect, and memory. When a stage iscompleted in the game, the user gets instructions to go to the nextdestination.
After extensive laboratory testing, field trials have been carried out on anumber of student groups from different higher education institutes inthe tourism, technical and scientific sectors. Of the 67 youngsters thatparticipated, almost 80% scored the product highly in terms of itsentertainment value, while 66% felt the tool also provided a good levelof information for learning purposes.The product is refined on the basis of the results or the user trials.VeGame builds on the results of the IST project E-Tour which wascompleted in May 2002.
VeGame has itself attracted widespread attention within the ITcommunity. The internationally-recognised computing magazine 'IEEEComputer' recently featured an article on it in September 2003. Asemphasised by Francesco Bellotti, a member of the ELIOS team inGenoa, "there are many multimedia tourist products on the market, but
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VeGame is unique because of its mix of gaming, education, mobiletechnologies and an in-depth linkage with the territory and its heritage. Auser is challenged to discover a geographical area, while alsoparticipating in an appealing and compelling educational multimediagame."
2.2.17 Image
Image provides location-dependent information. It uses a combination ofsoftware agents, a person's current location and route and the pre-defined preferences to serve the user with the information that isneeded. Information can be accessed using a variety of devices (pocketPC/PDA, mobile phone, and laptop/pc). The system uses GPS todetermine the current position and GPRS is used to communicate thedata.
In the next paragraph a number of projects are mentioned that are notfunded by the European framework(s), but are done by organisations inacademia and/or industry.
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2.3 Projects identified in academia or industry
Raptis et al provide a good overview of existing practises in the area ofcontext based applications for museums (2005). Moreover, they proposean interesting categorization of different kinds of visitors in museumsthat we can keep in mind developing services/applications for thetourism industry:
● the ant visitors, who follow a specific path and spends a lot of time observing almost all the exhibits,
● the fish visitors, who move most of the times in the centre of the room without looking at exhibit's details,
● the butterfly visitors, who don't follow a specific path, are guided by the physical orientation of the exhibits and stop frequently examining their details, and finally,
● the grasshopper visitors, whose visits contain specific pre-selected exhibits and spend a lot of time observing them.
Below, a number of projects that are related to museum support(discussed in Raptis et al (2005)) are highlighted.
1. Electronic guidebook: involves the visitors to directly manipulate the exhibits and gives instructions and additional science explanationsabout the natural phenomena people are watching.
2. System based on Marble Museum of Carrara; one of first operating systems in museum setting. It stores information locally in PDA's memory and uses a map to guide visitors around in the museum and presents content of different abstraction levels (room, section and exhibit).
3. Imogl (indoor system) in Gallo-Roman museum in Tongeren, uses Bluetooth to establish communication between PDAs and the exhibits, and reflects the closest exhibits to the location of the user.
4. Sotto Voce in Filoli, a Georgian Revival House in Woodside California,gives details about everyday things located in an old house, by havingpictures of the walls on the PDA's screen and the user can select the exhibit he/she is interested in.
5. The Points of Departure system (San Francisco Museum of modern art) gives details (audio and video) about techniques used in art works, the message that the artist wanted to reveal etc. The exhibits are thumbnails on the users PDA screen. Also uses smart tables.
6. Smart tables (Lasar Segall Museum, Sao Paolo, Brazil) can be used to enrich the interaction. It can deliver information to the PDA about more than 3000 paintings.
7. In the University Digital Museum (Tokyo), a system exists which uses three different ways to deliver content to the user. Firstly, the PDMA application allows people to hold the device above the exhibit he is interested in to deliver content. Secondly, the point-it application allows people to select specific exhibits by using a laser-pointer. Finally, in the Museum AR people wear glasses and if they look at a certain exhibit they get more information.
8. Some experimental systems under development:● C-Map project, in Kyoto (Japan), uses active badges to simulate the
location of the visitor, allowing tour planning and uses a VR (Virtual Reality) system that is controlled by the gestures of the visitor.
● A Tour guide (Taiwan), presents information about the exhibits automatically. There is no variation in the form of the visit, but different tour guides are used.
● Museum of Fine arts (Antwerp, Belgium), provides the visitor witha camera and he can select exhibits, or details of an exhibit, by taking a picture of it.
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● A tour guide in the PEACH (personal experience with active culturalheritage) project migrates the interaction from the PDA to screens and uses a TV like metaphor; by using presenters to deliver content.
● Hippie, a nomadic system, exhibition guide that provides guidance and information (developed in HIPS project), allows the user to access a personal virtual space during and/or after the visit. An electronic compass is used to identify the direction of a visitor. The mobile senses infrared beacons near the exhibits. The user's actionsconstruct a user profile that is used to suggest interesting aspects.
Swinger et al. (2005) provide an interesting overview of mobile tourismguides that are used in the area of context-awareness:
1. Compass (Context-aware Mobile Personal Assistant) provides touristswith context-aware recommendations and services. Context information is composed of location information, time context, user context (manually updated profile). The system adapts its behaviour according to different information sources.
2. Guide's focus is to provide tourists with up-to-date and context aware information about a city via a PDA. Guide provides a complete mobile tour guide including features such as descriptions of local areas, structured tours, messaging between tourist and interactive services (e.g. booking theatre tickets). When users see an object thatis of interest to them, they can ask the system to 'tell me about something I see'. The GUIDE unit then determines their approximate position and asks the user whether they are 'looking for something close by or far away'. From the response of the user, a number of objects of interest are displayed and the user can select his/her preference. The GUIDE project entailed a trial as well, were the interest was in the user reaction to the use of digital image capture and the reactions to such a tourist guide. More information is available in the article by Davies, Cheverst, Dix and Hesse (2005).
3. Gulliver's Genie is a prototype in the area of artificial intelligence and agent systems, focusing on intelligent content delivery considering the tourists location and needs during their trip in a pro-active manner. As tourists explore the area, they see a map with theircurrent position and points of interest in their surroundings. A person's location, as well as orientation (by means of an electronic compass) and movement (with a GPS receiver) are taken into account.
4. Lol@ (short for Local Location Assistant) is a research prototype for alocation-based mobile application for GPRS/UMTS. It provides tourists with multimedia tourism information about the city of Vienna. Its main focus is on supporting tourists during their trips with predefined tours, information about Poi's, routing functionality and multimodal interaction (speech control), based on a map. Virtual visits allow for pre-trip preparation and a tour diary allows the user to review the sightseeing after the trip. Lol@ can dynamically generate maps and annotate them with labels and icons; it also provides basic means to interact with the map (e.g. zooming).
5. MobiDENK (German acronym for mobile monuments) provides both navigation support and up-to-date information about Poi's. A visitor's current location and the POI are indicated on a map. Information about historic buildings is presented in a multimedia form, including historic pictures enabling a comparison with the current view.
6. Pinpoint is a framework for developing context-aware applications based on an external architecture.
7. Sightseeing4U is a prototype of a personalized city guide.
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The StorytellerThis is a digital cycling guide,developed by the tourism officefrom the province of Limburg,Belgium. The recreational cyclist isthe target audience. The concept ismore directed towards "experience"than towards navigation. It offers acombination of GPS navigation,story telling, audio and video. Audiois received through an earphone.
Icity (Flandres, Belgium)Icity is a research laboratory thatdevelops innovative mobile andbroadband ICT solutions that are testedagainst practical local public needs. Theidea is that technology should servepeople. Icity contains of several projects,a number of them are related to mobiletourism. More information on Icity canbe found at http://www.i-city.be.
Dwars door Hasselt (Straight through Hasselt)This completed project offers tourists aninteractive guide with routes, live videosof the event, records, programmes, amap, and more.
Festival WayThis project creates mobile solutions for experiencing festivals throughthe mobile device in an interactive manner as well. More information isavailable at: http://www.festivalway.be.
Eye CityThis projects enables people to see how busy certain areas or locationsin the city are through the use of webcams at certain points in the city.
Nordic-Vitalpark Thüringer WaldThe nature park and wellness centre the Thüringer Wald (in Germany), isoffering a mobile digital hiking guide. All routes in the Thüringer forestare available on this PDA, showing your own position and also regionalinformation about fauna, flora, food, drinks, and other interestinginformation in pocket format. More information at: http://www.vitalpark-thueringen.de/nordic.
Mystery in the museum (MiM)MiM provides collaborative learning activities using handheld devices in amuseum setting. The aim of the developed activity is to augmentinteraction with the museum through a mystery play that stimulateschildren's imagination. The plot involves a number of puzzles that arerelated to the exhibition of the museum.
Cityware project The Cityware project runs in the city of Bath (UK) in the area ofpervasive systems in urban contexts. The interest is not just the design
Figure 10. Interface of the storyteller
Figure 11. Icityproject Dwarsdoor Hasselt
Figure 12. ICityproject; Festival
Way
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of the architectural space in which people moveand behave and interact, but also in theinteraction spaces for information and services.Understanding and practice of urban design,interface design, context awareness is needed inorder to be able to develop successful city scalesystems. One of the topics in the Citywareproject is 'Where am I? What's that? I'llremember this'. A key component of any urbandweller's or visitor's experience of the city isspatial navigation. People want to know wherethey are, where they want to be and how to getthere. In many cases, people also want toidentify places and spaces both to aid navigationand to satisfy their interest in theirsurroundings. These twin concerns of way-finding and interpretation are particularlyimportant to visitors to a city. In addition, many of the visitors to a WorldHeritage City such as Bath visit the city as a leisure experience and wantto retain and take away with them memories of their experience of thecity. The archetypal example is the visitor taking photographs andcreating an album when she has returned home. Pervasive technologiesoffer us an opportunity to provide novel and effective support for way-finding, interpretation and recollection. As a solution to these scenarios,the Cityware project enables Mobile multimedia blogging. The use ofdigital cameras makes it easy for visitors to take away and recollectsome of their experience of the city. They can also organize and sharetheir pictures by posting them on a website. However, the process ofgetting the photos from camera to website can be laborious. Once thephotos have been transferred, many people wish to add a description tothe photos. At the moment, if the user wants a description of thelocation to be stored, she must manually type it in for each picture. Itmay be difficult to remember exactly where each photo was taken.
The Cityware project is implementing a system that is composed of 2parts: firstly an application on a mobile than that captures the GPS dataof the users location and stores that data and secondly there is a PCbased application which takes that location information and matches thetime the photos were taken with the times in the locations data file tofind the person's location at the time the photo was taken. The GPS co-ordinates are then compared to a point of interest database to get adescription of the location. This description is added to the XML file of thewebsite. The system also uses the location data to generate a mapshowing the user's route and where each photo was taken. Moreinformation can be found at http://www.cityware.org.uk.
Digital museum guide This museum guide is used in the Danish "Naturhistorisk Museum"(Museum of Natural History). The system consists of a PDA with GSMfunction, hosting a HTML-based application. The system uses RFID3 forlocalisation and WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) for informationexchange. RFID tags are placed on certain museum objects; when thedevice is close to this tag more information about the object is given.Different modes exist: an encyclopaedia mode (to get information for acertain museum object), a theme mode (information about a certaintheme, e.g. "birds") and game mode (visitor gets search tasks). Thesemodes can appeal to different target groups. Unfortunately RFID is onlyuseful for this kind of closed and well-controlled areas and the RFIDreception only works within 10cm distance, also, no routing is possible.More information can be found on http://www.naturhistoriskmuseum.dkand http://www.innovationlab.net.
Figure 13. Mobile deviceused on Thuringer Wald
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TimespotsTimespots is a Dutch company offeringservices/solutions for the tourist industry. Adigital walking guide is an example for thetourist visiting Amsterdam (can be hired sinceearly 2005). The concept is a combination oflocation-based services, walking and extras. Thetarget audience is broad, from the recreationalwalker to the business man. Functionality that isoffered by Timespots are: maps, location-basedservices; where-am-I, find nearest, navigationand routing, audio tours, internet and emailaccess, event calendars, news, weather, directdial local phone numbers, camera, video, andcontacting other Timespots users. Tourists canget Timespots at three and four star restaurants. People pay 15 euros aday for all-in usage and/or restaurants include the price in the room.Wayfinding is possible with location-based services. Moreover, up-to-dateinformation about events, hotels, museums, and points of interest isprovided. It is likely that Timespots will be made available in Paris,Rome, Barcelona and possible in other cities in the Netherlands. Moreinformation can be obtained at http://www.timespots.com.
ABEL; Adventure in Twente (The Netherlands)The goals of the ABEL project is to attract more Dutchand foreign tourists, to achieve a longer duration ofstay by an extension of the services, stimulating arepetition visit and to increase the expenses in therecreational sector. Different target groups exist:national and international tourists, tourists visiting forone day, art and cultural institutions, hospitalitycompanies, museums, regional attractions etc. Visitorscarry around a PDA device. The user will have anenriched experience because the PDA will guide
him/her through the mostbeautiful route by using apersonal profile. Points ofinterests are depicted in text and visual images anda digital diary is available as well. Along the way,the attention of the tourist is drawn to points ofinterest. In this way, the tourist would be able tosee places that (s) he wouldn't see/find otherwise.Up-to-date weather information is given, people willnot get lost anymore and a record can be reviewedlater of the travelled/visited route. Also an overviewcan be seen (if desired) of fellow tourists.
An example of services is: a bike tour with guidanceof a GPS enabled PDA. People visit a hotel andindicate how much kilometres they wish to bikeeach day. Also, a personal profile is communicatedwith the person's preferences (e.g. nature, culture,art, or history). In the next hotel, a last minute, freeroom is booked. Then a route is constructed (andloaded on the smart PDA) that matches the user'spreferences and will guide the tourist along the tour
and indicates points of interests for that particular person. The person'sluggage is brought to the next hotel. This is available as a hiking guideas well next to the bike tour. The service/product that is built in thisproject will thus be available as a commercial product. More informationwill be available in some time at http://www.uitmetabel.nl.
Figure 14. Timespots terminal
Figure 15. Abel map
Figure 16. Abel
Figure 17. Abel device
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CityInMyPocket, an electronic city hiking guide In this project, an intelligent, digital hiking guide will be developed.Citizens and tourist of a city can be regularly confronted with aninformation need about different (mostly practical) aspects. For example,would you like a quick and clear overview of the points of interest in yoursurroundings, or you'd like to know the opening hours of a certainrestaurant/museum. A number of pre-defined hiking routes will beconstructed and it will be anticipated upon the kind of questions thatpeople can typically have in such a visit/location. So, the tourist will getthe information that is relevant for him at that point in time. Thisproject started in October 2004 and will end in September 2006. Moreinformation can be achieved at http://www.cityinmypocket.org andhttp://canada.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/docarchwebsite/show.jsp?page=projects&id=CityInMyPocket
Mobile Tourist GuideIn this project, the use of 3D graphics in alocation-aware mobile guide is explored tovisualize the area the user is currentlynavigating, making it easier for the user toobtain the desired information about her objectsof interests. They also propose a preference-based search tool aimed at supporting users inthe search of points of interest in a geographicarea by combining dynamic queries with avisualization of the degree of satisfaction ofconstraints set by the user. Moreover, differentways of navigation guidance through a mobileguide are designed and compared (example, seeFigure 18); visual and audio directions arecombined during guided city tours. User trialsare carried out, by means of prototypes withdifferent interfaces, to understand more aboutthe optimal manner to guide pedestriansthrough the city. Figure 19 illustrates a trial ofthe Location-aware Mobile Tourist Guide on asquare of the city of Udine. While users navigatethe physical world, the 3D representation on thePDA is constantly updated and allows users toeasily obtain information on the objects ofinterest by directly pointing to them on thescreen with a stylus. More information is available on http://hcilab.uniud.it/projects/2004-01.html.Video demonstrations can be found: http://hcilab.uniud.it/demos-videos/item5/mobileguide.mov
TGH; Tour guide in handIn TGH a natural,multimodal interaction for ahypermedia mobile guidesystem is proposed startedfrom a cognitive frameworkabout mobile interaction.Users can interact with theTGH by speech, pointing,handwriting, sketching or acombination according to their own habits andpreferences. Context information is extracted from theenvironment; time, location (current and past), movingdirection, device orientation, reading habits.
Figure 18. Navigation bymeans of arrows and
photographs
Figure 19. User trial
Figure 20.TGH
Figure 21. Orientation awareadaptation display mode
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Croslocis; creation of smart local city servicesThe goal is to propose 'smarter' services in cities, making use of ITcapabilities. Examples of interested target groups are:
● shopkeepers wanting to attract people nearby to visit their shop, e.g. by means of rebate vouchers,
● café or restaurant owners wanting to attract groups of friends to meet at their establishments,
● movie theaters and mobile operators wanting to combine forces to make subscribers participate in a virtual movie club with all kinds of community actions,
● city staff and city inhabitants offering dedicated tourist guidance, wireless and location aware, at points of interest to city visitors.
This project studies a number of areas, all to create a service creationframework for smart local city services:
● business models and scenarios for smart local city services● an enhanced service and network architectural basis ● enabling services that populate the service framework with smart,
value-adding● functionality that can be leveraged by the actual end-user services ● an approach to service creation by the various types of framework
users● advanced multi-device user interface support for the services creatable
towards end-users
More information is available at:http://www.ibbt.be/site/uploads/media/leaflet_Croslocis-ENG_2006.pdf.
Examples of commercial initiatives
Hiking with support of GPS (in the Netherlands)In seven nature areas of 'Staatsbosbeheer' (a governmental organizationthat is responsible for the flora and fauna in the Dutch forests) it ispossible to make a hiking tour by means of GPS functionality in a mobilephone. An adventurous hiking tour can be made through the forests,even aside from the traditional routes that are available, to see thehidden spots. The routes are available in Drenthe (Schoonloo and theDrents-Friese Wold), there is one route in Flevoland (Hulkesteinse bos),one in Noord-Holland (Robbenoord bos) and three in Utrecht (Austerlitz,De Vuursche and the Heuvelrug-Zuid). The GPS devices can be hired fora price of 11,50 euro a day (with a deposit of 150 euro). Moreinformation can be seen at the URL:http://www.holland.com/groen/nl/index.html?page=http://www.holland.com/groen/nl/wandelen.html
Biking tour with GPS (Belgium)A biking holiday will be developed by means of GPS support (by a jointeffort of Tourism agencies in Vlaanderen (Belgium), Memori (a researchcentre of the KHMechelen) and with 'Grote Routepaden Vlaanderen'. Thetraditional way of experiencing biking tours will be compared with thenew (GPS enabled) way. The link to the side is:http://canada.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/docarchwebsite/show.jsp?page=projects&id=GPS-fietsarrangement
Other initiatives that make use of/provide GPS data are for example:http://www.gpsbiketracks.be (provides GPS enables tracks for biking
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tours). Hiking-site.nl is a site for active out-doors sporters, hikers,walking fans who are in need for information about routes, navigation,first aid, adventure, hiking, out door sports etc. For more information:http://www.hiking-site.nl/navigatie_gps.php.
An example of a walking site is www.wandelenarco.be (maintained,coordinated and updated by Lannoo). On this site, the customers ofARCO can download a number of walks (provided by Lannoo) for free,downloadable as PDF's which can be read later of different devices.Companies such as Webraska (http://www.webraska.com) andGeoDiscovery (http://www.geodiscovery.com) are developing location-based searching technologies that make use of GPS functionality.
The (Dutch) company kicker-events organizes all sorts of events, toursthat, somehow, use GPS. Examples are GPS hunting, bike tours, steptours, hiking tours, tourist/sightseeing tours. More information can beseen at http://www.kicker-events.nl. For hiking many (both commercialand non-commercial) websites are available that provide hikinginformation and/or GPS coordinates that people can used in their trip.However, it seems that only few of these initiatives are able to exportthis information to a mobile device that can be used during the hikingtrip it selves.
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2.4 Conclusions about projects in mobile tourism
Relatively many initiatives have been found in the area of mobiletourism, both funded and not funded by the European framework. It canbe seen that the tourism industry is rather innovative in finding new,attractive services for their customers. Most of the discussed projects aretargeted to the end user, the tourist as such. Only a few are directedtowards tour operators for example, of SMEs wanting to offer services totheir customers.
In most of the cases some kind of handheld device is used as terminalfor delivering the service on. This is possible due to the increase of(data) processing capabilities and multimedia possibilities of newermobile technologies. Also connectivity can be established in a number ofways (different examples seen in the projects are: GPRS, UMTS, WLAN,Bloothooth, RFID). By these tendencies, handheld devices and/orsmartphone become more and more able to take the place of a laptop.
Both indoor as well as outdoor services have been seen. Especially inmuseum settings a number of services are operational already for sometime. By and large, there have been positive comments about the use ofmobile devices in museum settings. Many of the outdoor examples arelocation aware and/or location based services. These services take thelocation of the user into account and use this information to adequatelyadapt the service and/or information offering to the user. These locationbased services were mainly seen in the area of mobile tourist guides.These tourist guides, in most cases, provide two important elements:
1. wayfinding support, routeplanning2. information on points of interest
The way that these two functionalities have been implemented variesamong projects. The main differences are relating to the way thatmultimedia is incoperated and how multimodal the interaction is that atourist can have with the service.
As said, many of the services in the tourism industry are targeted atproviding (location and/or attraction) information. Only a few examplesare mainly, or stronger focused on the entertainment aspect and offer,for example, a sort of game.
The projects funded by the European framework seem to be different ina number of ways compared to the projects from the industry. Firstly,more emphasis seems to be put on 'design for all', meaning havingexplicit and huge research efforts to include disabled people as well.Secondly, the issue of interoperability seems to play a large role. Thedesire exists to integrate various initiatives throughout Europe in such away that seamless travel is enabled (e.g. by building a platform ratherthan creating the service on top of it from scratch to the end). Finally, aproject, especially dedicated at the co-operation between European andChinese parties is seen. In the European projects, many differentcompanies have contributed, indicating an interest in the industry aswell.
In many of the projects important steps in the user centred designprocess are seen. Examples are; a user needs analysis, earlyprototyping, extensive lab testing and field trials. This tendency isconsidered to be very positive, especially in the area of mobile tourism inwhich the contexts people are in can vary and change enormously (andthe service has to be useful and usable in many different contexts).
Overall, there seems to be a lot of separate, stand alone initiatives.
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3 M-GOVERNMENT PROJECTS (A SPECIAL CASE OF E-GOVERNMENT)
3.1 What is e-government?
eGovernment is the use of information and communication technologies(ICTs) to improve the activities of governmental organisations (e.g. awebsite where citizens can get information about certain procedures, oran opinion poll about plans for a new building in the area). TheeGovernment topic is gaining attention of governmental organisationsworldwide.In the 6th framework, many projects in the area of e-government havebeen identified. Since the main focus of this document is on mobileprojects/initiatives, these e-government projects (over 40) are notdiscussed here. An overview, however, can be found in the appendixes ofthis document. On the European IST site, the same overview is availableas well by following this hyperlink:http://europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/egovernment_research/projects/egovernment_projects. Also, in the appendix, a short list isgiven of countries experimenting with ICT in the public sector, especiallywith e-voting.
E-government studies non EUJanssen, Rotthier and Snijkers (2003) have created an interestingdocument describing an elaborate benchmark study they conductedabout benchmarks on egovernment. They studied 18 studies onegovernment and compared and analysed them on a number of factors.
E-government studies at EUThe European Commission DG Information Society and Media organizeda workshop in March 2005 to stimulate discussions about the futurevision for e-government and the need for related research andtechnology development. More information can be found here:http://europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/egovernment_research/cluster_workshop.
A study has been carried out for the Institute of ProspectiveTechnological Studies (IPTS) within the policy framework and objectivesof meeting the European vision of a knowledge-based government whichcreates public value and improves cost efficiency by 2010 in line with theLisbon process (Millard, Shahin, Warren, Leitner, 2006 forthcoming). Itsmain objectives include the validation and further development of aseries of European eGovernment research themes identified at an IPTSworkshop in 2004, the policy relevance of each research theme, andtheir recent and future status seen in a global context. Recent and futureeGovernment research has been mapped against some of the mainLisbon 2010 policy goals, the major research challenges have beenidentified, a 'strengths and weaknesses analysis' is carried out, and aseries of research policy recommendations have been made. Finally,focus has been shifted onto an extended 2020 time horizon in order tocontribute to current discussions about eGovernment research, policyand practice in the medium to long term. The overriding purpose of thatpresent study is to examine how eGovernment research across Europe(both at national level and in EU programmes) can support major,especially EU, policy goals.
A recently released (March 2006) document provides an interestinginsight into the current state of e-government practices in the differentEuropean countries: "eGovernment in the Member States of theEuropean Union". A number of aspects are discussed for the different
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countries such as: country profile, eGovernment History, eGovernmentStrategy, eGovernment Legal Framework, eGovernment Actors,eGovernment 'Who's Who', eGovernment Infrastructure, eGovernmentservices for citizens, and eGovernment services for businesses. Thisdocument can be found on:http://europa.eu.int/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=24700.
It is not clear at this point in time what the potential European projectsare for the 7th framework. The next part of the chapter gives anoverview of m-government related projects that have been identified inthe 6th Framework. First, the concept of m-government is given someexplanation.
The forces influencing the step from e-government to m-governmentinitiatives include major changes in the technological infrastructure andadvances in mobile services (Kushchu and Kuscu, 2003). According toKushchu and Kuscu, the technological drivers for m-government can bebroadly described under three major trends;
1. mobile device penetration, 2. convergence of wired Internet and wireless communication networks,
and 3. the move towards 3G services and higher data transfer rates.
The next paragraph will give an overview of the m-government relatedprojects that have been identified in the European research framework.
3.2 What is m-government?
M-government is a subset of e-government; it is a possible channel todeliver services to citizens. M-government should not be considered as areplacement of e-government, more as a complement. Mobile devicesare not suitable for all e-government transactions/activities(http://www.egov4dev.org/mgovdefn.htm). While the capabilities ofmobile devices are growing, there is a difference between the (in/outputand) processing capacities of PCs (and broadband connections) and thoseof mobile terminals; moreover, the way in which these different devicesare used in their 'natural' context(s) differs as well.
In the case of m-government, mobile communication technology is usedfor government services and/or transactions. This can be mobile and/orwireless technologies like cellular/mobile phones, laptops and PDAs(personal digital assistants) connected to wireless local area networks(LANs). M-government can help make public information and governmentservices available "anytime, anywhere" to both citizens and employees.Many people have access to a cell phone or another wireless mobiledevice. The adoption rates of mobile phones are faster than those of PCs.Potentially mobile applications can bring a part of the solution to thedigital divide. Moreover, computers do not travel along with citizens, butinformation and public services can because of the instant availability ofmobile devices and/or services.
From a citizen point of view, m-government stands for new possibilities,a new front-end access to public services. Citizens are able to save timeand energy further by accessing the Internet and government networksthrough mobile phones and other wireless devices. Besides the increasein efficiency, mobile government can cause an increase in citizenparticipation and/or activism as well. Moreover, m-government isparticularly suited for the developing world where Internet access rates
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are low, but mobile phone penetration is growing rapidly (especially inurban areas).
From a governmental employee point of view, mobile technology hasbrought interesting possibilities (as in many other disciplines). Forexample, today, police officers are (becommining) as likely to use alaptop wirelessly connected to the Internet as the good old two-wayradio. When officers spot a suspicious vehicle they can directly searchdatabases that provide information on who owns the vehicle, if it hasbeen reported stolen or has been reported at a crime scene, and if theowner is wanted by police or has jumped bail. Health and safetyinspectors can now file their reports from the field in real time using aPocket PC or handheld terminals, eliminating paper forms and the needto re-enter the data collected when they get back to the office.
3.3 M-government projects in the 6th framework
There are relatively little running (nor completed) projects in the area ofm-government funded by the European 6th research frameworkcurrently. Nevertheless a few are related to m-government. These arehighlighted below.
3.3.1 USE-ME.GOV
The abbreviation stands for USability-drivEnopen platform for MobilE GOVernment.
Mobile communications and Internettechnologies are enabling the access to new e-government services at any time andanywhere. This project focuses on a new openplatform for mobile government services,supporting usability, openness, interoperability,scalability, thus facilitating service deploymentand access, as well as attractive business models satisfying serviceproviders, public authority and citizens.
In particular, mobile services should:● address specific users needs, with different background, age and
interests, ● overcome bureaucratic barriers, ● enhance quality of life for citizens,● help private companies to streamline their business activities,● feature a high level of usability and user friendliness, allowing for easy
search of information considering location, context, and user interests,● be easy to configure and deploy, not depending on expensive
software-hardware products or demanding technological skills, ● allowing for shared use of technical resources and content,● be cost-efficient to the public entity, create revenue to service
providers, but also affordable to service users,● exploit opportunities for the promotion of local companies and support
public authorities in their initiatives that aim at increasing competitiveness of local economical agents.
Work will be based on a few selected service types with universalapplicability and potential impact for different countries and regions. Themain outcomes will be:
1. Open Service Platform for Mobile Government: satisfying the most critical interoperability and scalability requirements and shared use,
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2. Attractive Business Models for Mobile Government: satisfying specific interests of all kinds of service providers and end-users,
3. Recommendations for service planning exploring opportunities for regional development and support to local businesses.
The project started 01-01-2004 and is expected to end by March 2006.More information can be found on http://www.usemegov.org.
3.3.2 SAFIR
The abbreviation stands for: Speech Automatic Friendly InterfaceResearch.
The Safir project will give each citizen or user group(s) an equalopportunity to access at any time and interactively existing up to date e-government information thru easy devices (that many people/householdshave access to) as TV, GSM, phone, PDA from anywhere by usage of ownvoice in his daily language. A key problem in society that is addressed inSafir is the communication between governmental sources and allcitizens with no discrimination. To provide information to people whohave and have no Internet access. Moreover, it would be beneficial thatpeople in the field (administrators), when being mobile, have anopportunity to access and update data repositories with new facts.Safir will create an innovative paradigm combining voice and graphicinterfaces. Imagine the citizen at anytime everywhere simply speaking tohis TV or GSM to request and fill e-government forms and transactions.The project will develop and implement the technique and methodologyto easily access, build and maintain content in a multimodal manner(using voice and graphic interfaces). User pilots will prove and enrich the techniques and methodologies thatare developed. User pilots will be in the following sub domains:
● Citizens (e.g. Chinese pilot at the Olympic games in Beijing 2008)● Municipal employees (e.g. to start uploading digital information from
the field)● Fire brigade and civil protection● Police and civil security organisations
The results will be: ● Software and Architecture for auto adaptive easy to use multimodal
interfaces, ● Standards proposals and adaptations, ● Link local linguistic rules with e-government and e-payment
applications for interface's automatic creation, ● Methodologies and procedures to allow specific classes of workers (civil
protection, police, regions, deciders) to increase the quality of data and services for people,
● Early visible adopters for pan European deployment. Creating the pillars for a better, none digitally divided society.
The project started 01-03-2004 and is expected to finish by 29-02-2008.More information is available on: http://www.safir-fp6.net/Template/2566.html.
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3.3.3 EU-Domain
The abbreviation stands for enabling users for distance working andorganizational mobility using ambient intelligence service networks.
The EU-DOMAIN project will develop a new,innovative European ambient intelligence serviceplatform for automatic, context sensitive offeringand contracting of mobile web services acrossheterogeneous networks. The EU-DOMAIN serviceplatform will interconnect people, devices,buildings, and content in an interoperable network.The EU-DOMAIN platform can be deployed in abroad range of industrial, government, healthcareand other citizen applications. In the project, theplatform will be validated in two sectors:● Building facility management and ● E-Health services.
EU-DOMAIN supports mobility among users andworkers by integrating them with seamlesslyaccessible ubiquitous intelligent surroundings thatsupport self-configuring devices using semantic agents and tools forambient awareness and decision support.
EU-DOMAIN supports working-out-of-workspace by providing seamlessdelivery-on-demand of content and establishes multimodal exchange ofknowledge amongst people, machines and devices. EU-DOMAIN usesintelligent user interfaces based on context-sensitivity and automaticuser profiling, tailored to the need of the mobile user. An integral part ofthe project is the development of realistic business models for users andservice providers. The business models will be based on the concept ofvalue-nets and emphasis will be made on identifying value creation andnew business opportunities for SME's. The platform will be available afterthe completion of the project to stimulate take-up. The maintechnological innovation in the EU-DOMAIN platform lies in its 3-tierintelligence pools based on a hierarchal client/server structure. Network,application and location intelligence is guiding interaction betweenservice providers, fixed and mobile locations, and devices.The project started 01-06-2004 and is expected to finish by 31-05-2007.More information can be found at: http://www.eu-domain.eu.com/pn.
3.3.4 Visual Admin project
The European visual ADMIN project focuses on the needs of publicadministration services to offer more visibility on their activities toadministered citizens and enterprises. This implies both offering a portalto information systems of the administration and supplying a customeroriented perspective. The final goal is to make it easier for citizens andenterprises to interact with the administration offices.
The operational development objectives of the project are to set up anonline Portal service pertaining:
● A portal to the information services and applications used by the publicadministration. Offering portal access for citizens and enterprises implies several subsets: ❍ Provision of a Customer management module for handling the
interaction of a Customer with the administration Work Flows; ❍ Integration of existing databases and legacy applications of the
administration; ❍ Interface with other online services relevant to the customers,
Figure 22. Interface tocontrol a health pump
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● Mobile accessibility: the accessto the service will also be offered through future generation mobile communication. This will provide citizens with an ubiquitous access to the administrative services from a multimedia mobile phone. The work performed in this area within the project will aim at ensuring that the VISUAL ADMIN service is accessible through E-GPRS and UMTS. Moreover, the VISUAL ADMIN solution alsooffers an intuitive interface to the service that will enable a citizen to interact with his multimedia mobile terminal through voice recognition for controlling access to administrative services and citizens' data
● Service management: The required level of service and security associated to such an online service should be implemented.
● The mobile interface contains the same information as the Web portal, rendered on a mobile device.
This project ended in August 2003. More information can be found on:http://europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/egovernment_research/doc/project_synopsis/syn_visualadmin.pdf.
3.3.5 Pandora
Pilot Action oN Digital economy Oppurtunities forRural Areas (PANDORA) is a project designed to showthe concrete development opportunities for regionaleconomies brought by the adoption of newinformation society technologies, services, practicesthrough the implementation and demonstration ofinnovative, mobile, regional public services.Advanced mobile Internet applications will beimplemented to serve the rural citizens and the ruraleconomy. In particular, a mobile set of applicationswill target the following regions:
● Lombardy; Services for farming SMEs will be implemented and provided in Lombardy: in particular, weather forecast, contribution management and news services.
● Basilicata; Basilicata region services will be set for the Metaponto archaeological park and devoted to group of citizens, tourists, travellers and stakeholders.
● Limerick; Limerick region will focus on both water monitoring and electronic patient monitoring services. Users will be group of citizens, physicians, and stakeholders.
● Central Macedonia; Central Macedonia services will cover e-government, e-business and e-tourism areas. Advanced mobile services will be provided to citizens, SMEs and stakeholders.
● Rhodope; Cultural SMEs and cross-border services will be provided in the cross-border region including Delta-Rhodope (EL) and Arm (BG). The actors involved will be citizens, SME's and stakeholders. More information on this completed project can be found on: http://www.ist-pandora.org.
Figure 23. Visual Admin interface
Figure 24. Pandora
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3.3.6 Multi-Channel Delivery of eGovernment services
An interesting report published in June 2004, "Multi-channel delivery ofeGovernment services" provides insight in the possibilities and nature ofmulti-channel delivery of eGovernment services(http://europa.eu.int/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=16867). Different channelscan be used to deliver services of the government. One of these channelsis through mobile communication technologies. This report provides anumber of best practices as well for example the HELP.gv-portal inAustria (www.help.gv.at). This is a general service portal, includingprovision of certificates of residence by means of a web portal, publicaccess points, hotspots offering free of charge WiFi access, WAP-basedhandheld devices and mobile phones.
The document discusses the concept of multi-channel delivery ofegovernment services very profoundly. Guidelines and recommendationswith respect to developing multi-channel services are given as well.
3.4 M-government related projects identified in industry or academia
In 2005, the first European Conference on Mobile government (Euro M-gov) was held at the University of Sussex (Brighton, UK). Although this isa rather new field, a considerable amount of (growing) interest was seenfrom the public sector, industry, and researchers. In the appendix anoverview is given of the title abstracts of that conference. The abstractsof conference proceedings (ISBN: 0-9763341-0-0) can befound/requested at http://www.m-government.org.
Multigovs
A multichannel strategy for e-government
Multigov is a project of the IBBT (aBelgium interdisciplinary researchinstitute for broadband technologiesoriginated by the Flemishgovernment). The goal of Multigov isto generate strategic knowledge abouta multichannel strategy for e-government to interact with citizens.The number of communicationchannels for and with citizens isincreasing and in the near futuregovernments can adopt a mix ofchannels to interact with citizens.Besides the classic communicationchannels (fixed phone, post, face-to-face interactions) with employees,now also interaction through kiosks, Internet, IDTV (interactive DigitalTelevision), mobile devices will be considered. Currently, more and moremobile devices are adopted by citizens. Multigov considers all thesedifferent channels, and specifically devotes attention to new possibilitiesin T-government (through digital TV) and m-government. Both thecitizen's and government's needs and wishes are taken into accountwhen developing this multichannel strategy. More information can befound at: https://multigov.ibbt.be and a summary athttps://projects.ibbt.be/multigov/uploads/media/Multigov_poster_eng_final.pdf.
Figure 25. Different devices can be usedin Multigov
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M-Tartu (project in a city in Estonia)
Research done in the M-Tartu project is funded by EU Interreg in thecontext of the 'challenge of e-citizen' project(http://www.ega.ee/public/Mobile_services_in_Tartu_FINAL1.pdf).
The city of Tartu seems to be afrontrunner in the area of m-governmentresearch and services. In 2004 (already),the first Estonian m-city project waslaunched there. At the moment, since2005, a number of pilot projects arerunning in the area of m-neighbourhood watch, m-teacher, and m-library.M-city services are interesting according to them because:
1. mobile penetration exceeds internet penetration (mobile services areavailable to more people than services offered over the Internet),2. people carry their mobile phone all day, so these services areaccessible everywhere and at all times (especially interesting in cases ofemergency/crisis messages),3. Moreover, mobile phones are cheaper than computers, often in one'snative language and easier to use.
Some examples of existing m-services in Tartu, Estonia (since December2005) are:
● mobile parking; clients of all Estonian mobile operators can pay for parking with their mobilephone (more information available at 1)
● mobile bus ticket; an ID-card ticketing system is available which includes paying the bus tickets by means of the mobile phone (info at 2).
● T-number; Tartu's tourists sightseeing attractions are available on mobiles by listening to an audio clip (info at 3)
● Mobile payments; by making a phone call to a certain number, people can use their mobiles to pay for products and services. In Tartu, people can pay by phone in (some) taxi's, shops and restaurants (info at 4).
● Tartu City short code 1789; this is used to provide the city with information about broken traffic lights or street lamps, damaged trafficsigns, etc. The messages are automatically forwarded to the bureaus dealing with the particular issues (info at 5).
● M-teacher; full time running service, teachers can send text messages to parents of students when important information needs to be communicated (info 6). Research is done as well on this service; results were positive.
● M-neighbourhood watch; taxi and bus drivers, security companies and other active persons can participate in making Tartu safer by receiving sms notifications on issues that require watchful eyes (e.g. missing people, stolen cars) (info 7)
● M-library; the library sends out notifications about waiting lists to the mobiles. If a person wants to borrow a book that is currently not available, (s) he can register for this book and a sms messages notifies him/her when the book is available 8.
● Tartu symbolics on mobile phone; www.tartu.ee gives people possibility to download Tartu city logos, backgrounds etc. for their mobile.
Research on these m-services was carried out as well during the m-Tartuproject. The survey results show that even though many people did not
1.Information on mobile
parkinghttp://www.emt.ee/wwwmain?pageId=298&menuId=612&screenId=content.private&componentId=ContentProviderComponent&actionId=load
2.Info about mobile busticket athttp://www.tartu.ee/?lang_id=1&menu_id=6&page_id=1269 andhttp://www.elion.ee/wwwmain?screenId=html.citizen-profile.28325&locale=et
3. http://www.regio.ee/?op=body&id=36
4. http://www.estcard.ee/publicweb/html/est/mobiilimaksed.html
5.http://www.tartu.ee/?lang_id=1&menu_id=6&page_id=2388
6.http://www.tartu.ee/index.php?page_id=734&lang_id=1&menu_id=6&lotus_url=/teated.nsf/e48cc6563eceb522c2256c310022c9d4/8485c976980bd55dc2256f4700563d80?OpenDocument
7.http://www.tartu.ee/index.php?page_id=36&lang_id=1&menu_id=6&lotus_url=/teated.nsf/web/viited/E982EA5BA35E194AC2256F96002AA752?OpenDocument
8.http://www.tartu.ee/?lang_id=1&menu_id=6&page_id=2690
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have experience yet with these m-services, the enthusiasm was high. Allnew m-services received high scores on the scale of necessity. A numberof new m-service ideas were suggested as well (a complete overview anddiscussion of the results are available athttp://www.ega.ee/public/Mobile_services_in_Tartu_FINAL1.pdf):
● Information on car expectation via mobile● Info on city planning● Weather forecasts● Information about available jobs on mobile● M-army● M-pediatrician● Information on events in Tartu● M-kindergarten● M-traffic announcements● Notifications about water/electricity interruptions● Mobile culture information● M-university (e.g. exam results, dates, cancellations)● M-tickets for sports events● M-bus information● Ordering tickets via phone (e.g. cinema)
The M-Tartu project performed an analysis as well of other countries thatare active in this m-city/m-services area. A comprehensive overview isgiven divided into different areas of discipline:
1. Education, the following m-services have been launched in different countries9:
● Institute of Chartered Accountants in Great Britain sends out exam results via SMS
● Sending out exam results via SMS is already working in Stockholm as well (m-Stockholm project). Moreover, SMS is used to inform parents about absentees.
● The University of Bradford sent text messages to all applicants the day before exams wishing students "good luck".
● In London a campaign was held to advertise higher education. Students were sent an SMS promoting higher education.
● Yorkshire, Great Britain; Dublin, Ireland - similarly to M-teacher in Tartu, teachers ofYorkshire and Dublin use text messaging to inform parents about absentees.
● France; South-Africa: similarly to Estonia and Stockholm, exam results are sent to students via SMS.
● Knowsley, Great Britain: 9 weeks before an important test students receive sms messages with different motivations to study and tips. The school also sends out wake-up text messages to those who tend to be late for classes in the mornings.
● The National University of Ireland; the University of Leeds and the University of London, Great Britain: students can receive mobile information on scholarships, job offers, extra curricular activity, student campaigns, and other events that might interest students and be of help.
● Estonia: secondary schools students can order results of national exams on mobile phones (in 2005 almost 50% of all students used this functionality, source: mobile solutions12). M-teacher pilot and the m-library service.
2. Medicine; examples of m-services13
● Great Britain; (test) reminders are send out 2 days before a doctor appointment via sms to reduce cancelled appointments
● Norway; dentists send out reminders of reminders via sms
9.Source "M-government:the feasibility of m-services in public sector".Mobi Solutions, 2004 (indocument of M-tartu)
10.http://www.sabcnews.com/sci_tech/telecomms/0,1009,48267,00.html
11.http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_374521.html
12.http://www.mobisolutions.com/en/
13."M-government: feasibilityof m-services in publicsectors". Mobi Solutions,2004
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● Smartmed.com has developed an SMS-based system to remind people to take their medicine on time (the system is out of use at the moment14)
● Outpatients' department in Italy has created a mobile based systemfor contacting voluntary blood donors
● An Irish doctor sends out notifications of the high level of pollen to his allergic patients
● Stockholm has tested two types of medical services: firstly, a mobilebased service for people who need extra care to order a nurse in case of an attack or a critical condition. Secondly, Stockholm has developed a mobile based communication and coordination system for welfare workers to synchronize their working schedules with emergency staff15.
3. Law enforcement examples● Malta; citizens may send an SMS to number '5061 1899' with the
registration number of the vehicle emitting excessive fumes. The authority will call the owner of the car for an inspection of the vehicle within three days16.
● Amsterdam, the Netherlands: after a mobile phone has been stolen,the police will send out text messages to the missing phone with theinterval of just 3 minutes. Since the system is based on the IMEI code, the mobile phone can receive those messages even if the SIMcard has been removed. Moreover, the Dutch police send out sms messages in crime investigations when they are in need for witnesses. A number of so called ' sms bombs' have been send out to phones that were in the area of a certain crime at a particular time in the hope for reactions and input of people who were witnessof the crime.
● Ireland - citizens can send photographical evidence of a criminal act to the police via MMS.
● Great Britain, Leicestershire - similarly to the m-neighbourhood watch project in Tartu, police sends out text messages to the local neighbourhood watch coordinators who then distribute the information in the area.
● Germany - police sends out descriptions of missing persons to taxi drivers and bus drivers in the hope of finding the persons quicker.
4. Crisis communication● Since 2003, mobile positioning in the cases of emergency calls is
compulsory for the member states of the European Union. In Estonia it was launched in 1999 already.
● London, Great Britain: after the terrorist attacks in the London subway, the police send out notifications on possible terrorist attacks via SMS.
● Italy: people in a disaster area receive a text message with a request to inform the embassy on their location and medical status. This system was used during the tsunami in Phuket for receiving information on the Italian citizens who survived.
● Great Britain: it is possible to send a text message to an emergencynumber which helps the emergency centre to locate the person in need and respond quickly to the request. It is mainly directed to people with hearing disabilities.
● Amsterdam, the Netherlands: in case of fire, a text message is sent to people who are hard of hearing (i.e. go home and close the windows).
● Great Britain: information on flood danger is sent via SMS, fax and digital TV.
5. Public administration services● USA (San Francisco): the citizens of San Francisco can register to
vote by sending a text message "ivote" to 80837. The sender will
14.http://www.mobileinfo.com/News_2001/Issue18/Smartmeds_phones.htm
15.http://www.stockholm.se/mcity
16.http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2005/08/009667.htm
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then receive a message with different options: voting in the station, having a registration paper sent home, voting via post and all the information one might need about voting17.
● Bellevue, Washington DC: the city council provides the construction inspectors with PDA-s which allows them to send and receive construction licenses on the spot.
● Manila, Philippines: since 2001, the citizens of the Philippines can submit complaints, comments, and questions about the work of the public service via SMS. The Civil Service Commission will then respond18. In the Philippines, citizens are able to help enforce anti-pollution laws by reporting smoke-belching public buses and other vehicles via SMS. SMS is also being used to get citizens involved in the fight against crime and illegal drugs (http://www.egov4dev.org/text2920.htm reports a case study).
● London, Great Britain: twice a year there is a meeting called People's Time Initiative that gives Londoners the chance to ask the Mayor and the London Assembly about their plans, priorities, and policies for the Capital. Citizens of London will be able to request tickets to attend the meeting and submit their questions to the panel via text19.
● Hong Kong: it is possible to book appointments with public servants,enquire updated news, government press releases and government telephone directory, search available timeslots for filing marriage notice using mobile phones. It is also possible to receive weather and air pollution information and traffic information through mobile devices20.
● In Malaysia, citizens can verify their voting information, such as the parliamentary and state constituencies where they are to vote, using SMS (short message service). Alternatively, citizens can request that real-time information is sent to their mobile phone, PDA, or pager as an e-mail or text message.
6. Notifications to citizens● Virginia, USA: since 2002 the state's citizens receive information on
the senators' and other representatives' telephone directory by using PDA-s and mobile phones. The citizens can also file complaintsto Customer Service, receive tourist information etc.
● The California state government has established a Web page where citizens can register to receive wireless PDA and cell phone notification services for energy alerts, lottery results, traffic updates,and articles from the Governor's press room.
● Malta: citizens will be notified about renewing their license via SMS.● Chelmsford Crown Court, Great Britain: - witnesses will be notified
about cancellations or delays of hearings via SMS. The aim of this system is to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
● New-Zealand: citizens are notified about unpaid tickets via SMS.● Fife, Great Britain: citizens are notified about unpaid rent via SMS.● Australia: the unemployed can order job offers, tips on how to book
appointments and renew one's data etc. via SMS.● Chenan, China: citizens are notified about upcoming bad weather
via SMS
7. M-democracy and m-elections● Bülach, Switzerland: in October 2005, the first mobile based voting
took place in a small city called Bülach. More than 11 per cent of the electorate (445 people) used the Short Messaging System (SMS) to cast their vote in a local poll. 25.7 per cent voted over theinternet. The new technology was tested for safety by the local Hewlett-Packard development team21.
● Great Britain: local administrations have used a non-binding m-polling system to receive public opinion.
17.http://www.personaldemocracy.com/
18.http://www.egov4dev.org/txtcsc.htm
19.http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2005/11/010634.htm
20.http://www.info.gov.hk/digital21/e-gov/eng/init/mgov.htm
21.http://www.swissinfo.org
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● Estonia, Tallinn City Council used m-polling in 2005 for public opinion on the new city logo. The logo that turned out to be the public's favourite, was taken into account by the experts.
MoBüD; Mobile BürgerDienste (Mobile Citizen Services)
The MoBüD consortium aims to develop a device concept and aninfrastructure for mobile citizen services. Citizen consultants will be ableto go to public places as hospitals, senior citizen residents, markets etc.,to provide services just as stationary offices of citizen services do. Thism-government solution combines aspects of e-government as well as theidea of a central administrative contact point ('one-stop office') (Buß,Runde and Sniehotta, 2003).
According to http://www.egov4dev.org/topic4.htm m-government can beapplied to four main purposes in the public sector, as summarised below:
1. mCommunication: Improving communication between government and citizens (G2C, C2G)Communication and provisioning of information to the public is a very important activity. Citizens need to be up-to-date and aware of relevant information to form opinions and to act meaningful. Transparency is very important in politics. Mobile devices provide an important access channel for governments to reach citizens individually (G2C). People can 'subscribe' for a certain service that will be communicated by the civil servants (opt-in). Aside from these opt-in G2C communications via mobile phones, SMS is also being used in emergency broadcasting. At the height of the SARS incident, the HongKong government sent a blanket text message to 6m mobile phones in a bid to scotch fears emanating from rumours about intended government action to stem the disease.SMS is also a channel for citizens to communicate with government (C2G). In the Philippines, half of cabinet agencies have SMS-based services that allow citizens to ask for information or to comment and complain about government officials and services. In China, the 150 million mobile phone owners can now send SMS to the 2,987 deputiesof the National People's Congress.
2. mServices: mTransactions and mPayments; government-to-citizen transactions are possible as well by means of SMS and other mobile communication technologies.The Singapore government has drafted SMS into the service its goal of increasing population. Its Social Development Unit acts as an official dating agency for educated single people. In Norway tax collectors have introduced SMS tax returns. Taxpayers who have no changes to make to the form they receive in the post can now simply send a text message with a code word, their identity number and a pin code instead of returning the form by mail. In Finland, SMS ticketscan be used for Helsinki's public transport system. These tickets can be ordered by sending a text message and the user is billed through his or her regular mobile phone bill. The ticket itself is also delivered to the commuter by SMS. While the use of m-payment in e-Government is still limited, it is expected that - as mobile payments systems evolve from simple payments for digital content and services to complex integrated handset, bank and operator payments - its use for transacting business with government will grow as well.
3. mDemocracy; mVoting and the use of SMS and mobile devices for citizen input to political decision-making is an m-government
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application with big potential to enhance democratic participation. According to Zálešák (2002, 2003), m-democracy has two benefits:
● Citizens can easily express their opinions directly to the governmentand elected officials through, for example, mobile referenda, mobile voting, or general inquiries.
● Citizens can be well informed of how their elected representative votes on specific issues.
Political representatives can be in more intimate contact with citizens before and after elections and/or other moments of decision making. Examples are given of experiences in the UK. Most of the UK experiments with electronic voting, including voting via mobile phones, are meant to discover more convenient ways to involve citizens in political decision-making.An m-voting system has to ensure that the message sender is a registered voter, and that no-one abuses the system to vote more than once or vote in place of another person. Voters in Liverpool and Sheffield in May 2002 local elections were given PIN numbers to use ifthey want to vote by text message.
4. mAdministration; Improving Internal Public Sector Operations. M-government gives opportunities to improve the operation of public agencies.
Besides these categories for applying m-government in the public sector,an additional categorisation for m-government is given by the researcherZálešák (2002, 2003) as well. These categories are listed in the nextparagraph, as well as a number of examples:
1. M-communication (G2C and C2G); provision of information through mobile devices in 2 categories:
● general information of alerts that are not legally binding for citizens,businesses or government; primarily sending SMS/ SMS email alerts/information on mobile internet
● Important or legally binding communication and information, provided by businesses or individuals to government and vice versa.
2. M-payment for information and services
3. M-Voting
4. Internal m-government issues; for example cost saving opportunities for the internal operation of government institutions.
5. Location services and m-government; location based services (LBS) are services that exploit knowledge about where an information device or user is located. Currently, these services are used mainly forcommercial and advertising purposes; however their potential for emergency services is enormous. LBS could be used for warning people in an emergency area. So, in this case people do not have to subscribe for this service, but they get the emergency message when they are in a dangerous area/location. Also, people in danger can use their phone to contact the institutions and the location information can be seen.
● Fight against mobile phone theft❍ The Netherlands; After a missing phone is reported to
Amsterdam police, an automated SMS message is sent to mobile number of phone, being stolen (every 3 minutes) (Basedon IMEI number, so this works even if SIM is replaced).
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6. M-government for transportation; for example remote diagnostics of broken vehicles.
7. M-government for education, examples given by Zálešák (2002, 2003) are:
● Great Britain: ❍ SMS message as a motivation tool for secondary school
students (UK)❍ SMS message as one of means of communication with
students- every student receives SMS story about 3 successful students
❍ Supplementary activities - wake-up phone calls for frequent late-goers, interactive website, coaching
❍ SMS fighting against "truancy", in case a student is absent, his/her parent receives an automated SMS (can be extended byregular SMS information about school activities)
● National University of Ireland - information about jobs, scholarships,education, extracurricular activities, SMS invitations to interesting events
● University, Leeds University and University of London - sending SMSinformation to students about academic life, preparation for future occupation, extracurricular activities, interesting and discounted tipsand information
8. M-health● SMS communication with deaf people
❍ Great Britain - West Midlands. In case the deaf or citizens with hearing difficulties have a problem, they send a message to central police mobile number /service for registered citizens/ - the police also has information about location and can react.
❍ Holland - Amsterdam. In case of hazardous/toxic fire or other threat, the deaf citizens receive SMS message - accompanying to siren (e.g. Go home, close windows and doors.)
● Ireland; MMS messages - sending a photo of criminal act. A numberof thieves are caught in Italy thanks to MMS photo.
● Pilot project in Germany - cooperation between police and bus/taxi drivers - if police is searching for a missing person, they can send out an SMS message with a relevant description to cooperating drivers and give the details about a missing car.
ICity projectICity is a research laboratory that developsinnovative mobile and broadband ICT solutions thatare tested against practical local public needs. Bybuilding a wireless city and making use of an opensoftware platform on which wireless applicationscan be tested and investigated, the FlemishGovernment expects to obtain a better picture of itscitizens' needs.
ICity is one of the world's biggest mobile servicestesting grounds. ICity provides a ground forcreating and testing new services in a 'a pocketcomputer' in a 'wireless city' to study the impactand nature. Eventually 4,000 test users will be ableto experience all the new mobile services in real.The idea is that technology should serve people. ICity contains several projects (for example: Festival Way, i-Shopping, MiWai, Versuz!). On project is also in the area of m-government: 'PDA-lisering van stedelijke website' (creating the city website on a PDA). Thecity website of the city of Hasselt (BE) will be made available and
Figure 26. Screen ICityproject
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accessible on PDAs. More information can be found at http://www.i-city.be/alfas.
A1 SignatureMobile telecommunications operator mobilkom Austria launches A1SIGNATUR, a mobile identification service for e-government. This serviceallows the identification/authentication of e-government customers viamobile phone, and enables Austrian citizens to digitally sign documentsand securely transact with government without having to possess aCitizen Card or a software-based digital signature(http://www.mobilkom.at/CDA/getAttachment_mk/0,3148,1018,00.pdf).
Mobile City PortalThe city of Bremen (Germany) has launched Mobile City, a portaldedicated to mobile technologies and services. With this portal theintention is to act as a test-bed for the development of mobile publicservices. The new portal will therefore act as a test-bed for mobileservices, allowing businesses to test and develop their ideas. The bestprojects may then be selected and funded by the City, in particular forthe development of new m-government services. More information canbe seen at http://www.mobilecity.org/de/mobilecity_start.
MaltaThe m-government service of Malta is an initiative of the Maltesegovernment that aims to offer e-government services via multiple servicedelivery channels apart from the WWW. One of these service deliverychannels is mobile telephony. Mobile phone users will be able to access anumber of government services via their phone. Both Vodafone and GoMobile subscribers will be able to receive notifications and serviceinformation on their phone, some examples:
● Notification of acknowledgements and status change of customer complaints; this service enables you to receive an acknowledgement via SMS after you have contacted the Customer Care web site, www.servizz.gov.mt. The servizz.gov web site enables you to submit a question, a suggestion, or a complaint to any Public entity, Government Department or Local Council in regard to the services they offer. This service also enables you to receive SMS's on the progress made and whatever has been done regarding your problem.
● Notifications of court deferrals; this service enables you to receive notifications via SMS of court sitting deferments to the clients and their legal representatives.
● Notifications for license-renewal to the holders of licences issued by the Trade Department, Malta Tourism Authority, Malta Maritime Authority and Public Transport Authority. This service enables you to receive notifications via SMS for licence renewals to the holders of Trade licences, Malta Tourism Authority licences and Malta Maritime Authority licences.
● Notification of exam results; this service enables you to receive your examination result via SMS. Students sitting for the Matsec Examination can apply for notification of their results via SMS.
● Notification for Direct Credit Payments from the Department of Social Security. With this service you will receive a notification whenever there is a direct credit payment to your bank account from the Department of Social Security.
A number of m-government services are being developed in Malta:
● Notification via SMS by the blood bank to advise registered blood donors when urgent needs for blood arise.
● Notification via SMS to parents from their children's school to inform them if their children are absent from school on that day
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● Notifications via SMS from the public libraries to individuals who have placed a reservation for a book
● Bus schedule availability via SMS ● Notification of job opportunities from ETC to individuals who have
selected specific areas of employment ● Reporting incidents or relevant information to the Police Force
SMS technology is used most in the Malta case. Services are mostlynotification services. More information on the initiatives of thegovernment of Malta can be found on:http://www.mobile.gov.mt/?mb:lang=en.
Hungary. The Hungarian authorities are increasingly using mobilegovernment (m-government) for the delivery of public services. Thepenetration rate of mobile phones (81%) has overrated the computerpenetration (30%). This enormous use of mobile phones has promptedthe country's public authorities to create mobile government services byusing SMS and WAP technologies. This way, mobile phones found theirway into the public administration procedures. The first successfulHungarian m-government service was a special vehicle history reportavailable via a premium rate SMS service run by the Ministry of Interior.Since then, numerous other mobile phone-based services have beenlaunched in the country, including payment of parking fees, notification ofschool results, notification of processed forms, and application to makeuse of public premises. At a strategic level, the goals are to use mobiletechnologies to allow users to sign in using their mobiles, develop e-payment services accessible through mobile phones and to develop two-way interactive m-government services.
Administration of taxes; The Dutch government has communicatedintentions to introduce (in 2008) the possibility to communicate by SMSwith citizens whose taxes are filled in by the tax authorities. Citizens canreply to the authorisations by SMS whether they agree or not.
The Lancashire County Council has a Text Alertservice. The Lancashire County Council has a monthlySMS consultation programme. Each month a question istexted to people's mobile phone asking for their views ona public sector issue. People then reply to the text withtheir views and thus help to shape and direct their owncouncil. More information can be seen at:http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/environment/sms
3.4.1 Benefits and risks of m-voting
M-voting is an extension of e-voting that allow citizens to give their votevia mobile phone.Unlike opinion polls, the results of m-voting on local or national electionswould be binding andthe vote given by mobile phone would be equal to the vote given onpaper (Rannu and Semevsky, 2005). According to a small surveyconducted a few years ago, about 50 per cent of the potential userswould prefer m-voting to traditional ballots and e-voting whenguaranteed safety and simplicity (50 Estonian citizens between 15-74were questioned in January 2004). The main benefits were thought to be(Rannu and Semevsky, 2005):
● More people would vote; making voting easier would increase the percentage of people going to vote, especially among the young. According to a study done in Britain, 50 per cent would prefer an m-voting system.
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● Saving time; regular voting takes about 30 minutes on average (with going to/from the polling location), m-voting only takes a couple of minutes.
Also drawbacks, risks, and challenges of m-voting were mentioned inthat study:
● Technological:❍ Secure identification over mobile devices❍ Secure system that guarantees secrecy and honesty of m-voting
that explains working principles to public● Political and social:
❍ Readiness of citizens to vote over mobile❍ Legitimacy of m-voting: getting people to have confidence in the
honesty of m-voting❍ Similarly to e-voting, with m-voting it is equally hard to guarantee
the privacy of the voting process and reduce the possibility to buy votes.
● Economical:❍ Costs of creating an m-voting system are considerably higher than
creating other m-services and in an equal range with the cost of creating e-voting system.
3.4.2 Additional (related) information
Rannu and Semevsky (2005) suggest a number of interesting (research)studies on m-city and m-government:
● M-government Case Studies Michal Zálešák, http://topics.developmentgateway.org/e-government/rc/ItemDetail.do~369723
● Government unplugged: mobile and wireless technologies in the publicservice.http://www.cpsi.co.za/contentfiles/tblFile/5_filFilePath_Government%20Unplugged.pdf
● Development modules to unleash the potential of Mobile Government: developing mobile government applications from a user perspective. http://topics.developmentgateway.org/egovernment/rc/filedownload.do~itemId=403277
● From e-government to m-government: facing the inevitable (Kushchu, I., Kuscu, M. H., 2003)
Other interesting cases can be seen at:
Case examples ofSMS use in thepublic sector (globalcases)
www.itu.int/osg/spu/ni/futuremobile/content/messaging.html
www.textually.org/textually/archives/cat_sms_and_politics.htm
http://www.egov4dev.org/text2920m.htm
http://www.egov4dev.org/birsms.htm
http://www.egov4dev.org/txtcsc.htm
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3.5 Conclusions about projects on m-government
In fighting for m-government, two important basic facts are to beconsidered (Zálešák, 2003):
1. there are more people who do not have access to PCs than there are people who do not have a cell phone or other wireless mobile device, which will make government and services available more to mobile customers as a group that to pc users, even though m-government is a subset of e-government.
2. computers do not travel along with people, but information and publicservices can. M-government allows for instantaneous availability of services and information, helping frequent travellers and people on the move to get access to government.
These two basic facts, among other arguments, give a strong support forthe use of mobile technologies in governmental services (m-government). Mobile technologies being one of the most importantpotential channels for future e-government applications have a potentialto provide users-both citizens and civil servants- unique opportunitiesthrough freedom of mobile access to provided services and informationliterally from any place, at any time.
Currently only a limited number of projects in this area are funded by theEuropean Union. More initiatives are seen in the different governmentalinstitutions, particularly at the local level. Apparently many cities areattracted by the potential of mobile technologies as well. Obviously, thisis a rather new field; so many barriers exist as well (e.g. security of themobile channel).
Mobile government is still in its infancy in terms of the interaction itenables currently between governmental agencies and citizens. Differentlevels of interaction depth are seen that could potentially be achieved bymobile technologies. Different people, researchers, propose differentcategories and different levels of interaction. The interaction, for examplecan range from informing, communicating, to consulting, to evaluating.Also, a number of application areas or service categories aredistinguished, for example: medicine/health, education, emergency, orlaw enforcement (and many more). Currently, most of the interaction isenabled by sending SMS messages to citizens often through opt-inprinciples.
In conclusion, m-government is expected to have large potentials, butcurrently, few success stories exist in which the capabilities of mobiletechnologies have been exploited to the full potential. There is still aneed for research and development in this area, based not only ontechnological research, but also on social use, and administrativeefficacy. Besides the technology challenges that have to be in place to letm-government work, also several organisational and culturalchanges/adaptations are needed in governmental institutions. Thisrequires flexibility, open mindness, and willingness to change in thegovernmental spheres.
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4 CONCLUDING REMARKS
In this chapter, a number of concluding remarks are made for both thetourism and the governmental fields. A number of researchers havemade interesting statements about these fields. Some of thesestatements of results of studies are mentioned in this chapter. Whereasthe individual conclusion paragraphs, in the previous chapters arerelatively detailed, these conclusions are meant to be more high level forthe two domains.
4.1 Tourism
Mobile technology is making its way in the tourist scene. Many researchreports are becoming available of (the evaluation of)applications/projects to support tourists by means of mobile devices.Many applications have been developed for tourist locations and/ormuseums, possible applications contexts are:
● Mobile electronic guides● Powerful instruments to enhance the visit and to enhance the
interaction with the environment❍ For exploration, getting information, taking notes, communication,
investigation● Many of the mobile tourism applications are location based services
and deal with the question of "find the nearest…".
Tourism is, obviously, a field in which it is very important to satisfy thecustomer. Tourists want to have a good time, nice experiences while theyare travelling and/or spending their free time.
A number of different types of 'entertainment' can be distinguished, forexample:
1. Pure entertainment; only aim is to entertain
2. Infotainment; presents information and news in a manner intended to be entertaining
3. Edutainment; additional purpose of education by means of games, shows, films
4. Advertainment; make different items known to users while users areentertained
5. Shoptainment; when being intelligently used, stimulate purchase decisions
In the projects that have been identified in this document, most of thecases the central theme is related to the category of infotainment.Tourists can get travel directions, for example, in combination withinteresting facts about the points of interest they are about toexperience. In some museum related applications, edutainment is seenas well in which it is important that a certain piece of information is'learned' or understood by means of a game for example. Multimedia andgaming technologies offer endless opportunities for learning while beingentertained. Culture or history of a particular environment can bebrought alive by enabling a visitor to interact and learn throughmultimedia applications.
Schwinger, W., et al (2005) conducted an in-depth survey on existing,
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web-based mobile tourism guides. Their evaluation framework usedparticular focus on context and adaptation. They found that muchdifferent functionality was thought of, but that none of themcomprehensively supports all their proposed criteria. There is a lack ofuse of standards, reusability, extensibility, and interoperability. They drawthe conclusion that there is an urgent need for providing and using aframework. A selection of their lessons (in total they mention 14 in theirarticle) learned about context awareness in mobile tourist guides:
1. Tourism as a social activity not considered; social factors are important in tourism since people tend to go sightseeing in groups. These social factors are not taken into account often. Some systems provide some support in the form of 'friend-finders' or the possibility to add personal information to a certain Point of Interest that can be shared with others. Further systems could elaborate more on the social aspect of tourism.
2. Balance between thin and thick clients problematic; should mainbulk of data be stored on the terminal or in the network? Both have their advantages and disadvantages. This should be considered carefully.
3. Potential of incorporating external content not exploited; external content can be delivered e.g. through web services. This has been used very little.
4. Push versus pull. In most of the cases the tourist explicitly has to ask for information (pull), whereas, in some cases it can be useful to push information to the customer as well.
5. Dynamic adaptation of guided tours not (often) provided; several projects provide pre-defined tours, but if a visitor decides to take an alternative route (for whatever reason), no dynamic route adaptation takes place.
4.2 M-government
The widespread use and high penetration rate of mobile telephony (in theworld, compared to Internet penetration) combined with the highpersonal nature of mobile technologies seem to create interestingpossibilities for government services/applications. The number of peoplehaving access to mobile phones and mobile internet (connection) is stillincreasing rapidly as well. Mobile access is becoming a common good formany people and 'we' have become used to the anywhere, anyplace,anytime communication, information and entertainment society. Nevertheless, there are a number of technical challenges as well thatneed to be taken for m-government to be successful (for example,interoperability, security, and privacy). Besides the technical challenges,a number of organisational and/or cultural aspects need to be taken intoconsideration as well.
Challenges for M-governmentImplementing m-government will bring a series of challenges (Kushcuand Kuscu, 2003):
1. Infrastructure developmentAppropriate 'physical' and 'soft' infrastructure must be available. The physical infrastructure refers to the technology, equipment, and network required implementing m-government. Soft infrastructures refer to institutional arrangements, and software that make m-government transactions possible.
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2. Payment infrastructures
3. Privacy and security, the general fear is that mobiles are traced and/or hacked.
4. Legal issues (about the law being able to recognise and accept certainmobile documents and/or transactions)
5. Mobile penetration rate
6. Accessibility
7. Compatibility of mobile systems with existing e-government systems.
The research group of M-Tartu, a city in Estonia, did a lot of research onm-government related services. When developing m-services, theyadvise to use the following framework for categorizing the differentservices. Examples are taken from the M-Tartu research.
Government to government (G2G) and business to government(B2G)Government to government services are designed to make the internalfunctioning and communication within a public agency more efficient. Forexample, a public employee working outside the office (i.e. fieldinspectors) can use PDA to send information to the office. Such servicescan be developed by the government itself (G2G) or by businesses(B2G).
Government to business (G2B)M-city services from government to businesses aim to answer thefollowing questions: "how to provide businesses with city information inthe most timely manner" and "can mobile technologies contribute". Inmost cases, businesses have a good access to Internet, which makes itreasonable to focus on such services where mobile phones have a clearadvantage over the Internet.
Government to Citizen (G2C) and business to Citizen (B2C)Most of the m-services that are launched are probably government tocitizen or business to citizen services. Such services are aimed at makingthe communication between citizens and city government (or a publicagency) more convenient or, to use mobile technologies to provide somegovernment service in a better way. Some of the services have beeninitiated by the government (i.e. short code 1789), some by businesses(m-parking, mticket etc.).
Government to tourist (G2T) and business to tourist (B2T)Tourists can use their mobile phone to have a mounted camera to take apicture of herself in front of Tartu sights, and have it sent to her e-mailor via MMS, is being launched.
Citizen to citizen (C2C)Citizen to citizen services are launched by residents on their owninitiative, with the aim of doing a small and cool thing, which makes citylife better. A good example of such a service is from a few years ago,
Government Business Citizen Tourist
Governement G2G G2B G2C G2T
Business B2G B2B B2C B2T
Citizen C2G C2B C2C C2T
Figure 27 Matrix of m-service categories (M-Tartu project)
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when students of Tartu University created a public information system,where you could access all public transport timetables in Tartu, andoffered it through Internet and SMS, free, and without any compensationfrom City Government.
The most m-services22 have been proposed, and are most likely to havethe biggest possibilities in the following areas (see also the gray cells inthe Matrix of the M-Tartu project):
● Government to government● Business to government● Government to business● Government to citizen● Business to citizen● Citizen to citizen● Government to tourist● Business to tourist
Moreover, m-government should not be seen as a replacement for e-government, rather as a complement, as another possible channel todeliver services to citizens. M-government will most likely becomplementary to other (e) government services, and it should not beseen as THE solution for all kinds of services. Still, many interestingopportunities can be seen with m-government, both for citizens and civilservants.
22.http://www.ega.ee/public/Mobile_services_in_Tartu_FINAL1.pdf
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20. Sefelin, R., Bechinie, M., Müller, G., Seibert-Giller, V., Messner., P. (2005). Landmarks: Yes; but which? Five methods to select optimal landmarks for a landmark- and speech-based guiding system, Conference proceedings of Mobile HCI05.
21. Song, G., (2005). Transcending e-Government: A case of Mobile government in Beijing. Conference proceedings of the First European Conference on Mobile Government, Brighton, 2005. http://www.grchina.com/transcending_egov.pdf
22. Strachan, S., Eslambolchilar, P., Murray-Smith, P., Hughes, S., O'Modhrain, S., (2005). gpsTunes - controlling navigation via audio feedback. Conference proceedings Mobile HCI 2005. http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rod/publications/StraEslMurHugOMo05.pdf
23. Veikko Anttiroiko, A. (2003). Communications of the ACM, Volume 46, Issue 9, p. 121-128. Building strong e-democracy: the role of technology in developing democracy for the information age.
24. Yue, W., Mu, S., Wang., H., Wang., G. (2005). TGH: A Case Study of Designing Natural Interaction for Mobile Guide Systems. Conference proceedings of Mobile HCI05, P-199-206.
25. Zálešák, M., m-government Case Studies: SMS messages for education. SMS citizen safety. Other interesting m-government services. (a) 16/01/2003 Part I: M-Government: more than a mobilised
government (b) 17/01/2003 M-Government: more than a mobilised
government, Part II (c) 30/07/2002 The future of m-government (d) 31/07/2002 The future of m-government: Part II (e) 07/08/2002 The future of m-government: Part III
26. Zalesak, Michal, Series of articles on m-government at the europemedia.net: http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=11768http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=11824http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=11924http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=14482http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=14495
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APPENDICES
Additional Mobile tourism related project
E-TOUR
Hand-held assistant for electronic guided tourism (E-TOUR)
E-Tour developed a value-added service providing mobile access to amultimedia integration of the tourist information. The information will bepresented to the tourist through a handheld device connected to TouristInformation Systems through the Internet. The device will be composedof a handheld computer enhanced with add-ons suitable for tourism. Themain objectives are to develop, according to user-centric design criteria:
● a HMI able to convey easy to exploit powerful information and servicesto tourist;
● a technical architecture that provides positioning/communication/voice facilities and is open to incremental development;
● develop and/or integrate the hardware/software components of the Tourist Digital Assistant (TDA);
● to prepare a software toolkit for developing new HMI structures for tourist applications;
● to prepare multimedia information for the involved tourist areas, ● to prepare software modules for tourists services; ● to prepare format translation modules for interoperability with
European Tourist Information Systems;● to perform field tests of the prototypes, evaluating users' acceptance,
verifying logistic issues and elaborating information about tourists' behaviour patterns.
Project was completed in 2002.
Cooltown (Caswell and Debaty 2000) is a platform for location-basedapplications that aims to support the association between entities in thephysical world and their respective web pages. By pointing at objects(e.g. painting), users receive an URL and thereby information about thepainting.
E-government related projects
On the Cordis site a number of European funded projects have beenfound in the area of e-government. These are listed below. Moreinformation can be found on the Cordis sitehttp://www.cordis.lu/fp6/projects.htm.
COSPA - Consortium for Open Source in the PublicAdministrationUse of various open source software solutions, which tests andmeasures the benefits in public administrations in terms ofoffice-level productivity and financial indicators.
EMAYOR - Electronic and secure municipal administrationfor European citizens; Software solution to secure theinteraction between administrations and the citizens.
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EUSER - Evidence-based support for the design anddelivery of user-centred online public services;Benchmarking users' needs in the fields of eHealth andeGovernment and surveys on research challenges.
FLOSSPOLS - Free/libre and open source software:policy supportStudy on the emergence, use and development methods ofeGovernment Open Source Solutions and their genderimplications on the research community.
GUIDE - Creating an European identity managementarchitecture for eGovernment; Interoperable frameworkfor identity management and related implementationstrategies, respecting European diversity and interests.
HOPS - Enabling an intelligent natural language based hubfor the deployment of advanced semantically enrichedmultichannel mass-scale online public services; Interactiveaccess to public services information through voicetechnology for inclusion of all citizens.
INTELCITIES - Intelligent cities; Open sourceinteroperable platform for cross-border public services toexchange data.
ONTOGOV - Ontology-enabled e-gov serviceconfigurationMethodology and software for a flexible re-design of thepublic administration's online services.
QUALEG - Quality of service and legitimacy ineGovernmentSoftware for local public administration to communicate withcitizens, measure their satisfaction and involve them inpolicy formulation, based on open source.
SAFIR - Speech automatic friendly interface researchMultimodal and multilingual speech technology providingservices to the citizens and civil servants, applying also innoisy environments.
Terregov - Impact of eGovernment on territorialgovernment servicesTechnology to enable the automatic access tocomplementary services from different administrations inorder to get the complete service at once.
AGORA 2000 - Innovative IST Platform and Servicesto support a Democratic Regional/Urban PlanningProcess; design an integrated environment able to supportthe different phases of theregional/urban planning decision process
AIDA - Advanced Interactive Digital Administrations;Demonstrate the feasibility of using edocuments, defined asmachine readable data structures, for authentic and legalelectronic documents.
AVANTI - Added Value Access to New Technologiesand services on the Internet; Address some technologyaspects of engaging citizens in the information society
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BISER - Benchmarking the Information Society -eEurope Indicators for European Regions; Develop,define and pilot statistical indicators for measuring andbenchmarking the impact of the Knowledge Economy onEurope's regions
CB-BUSINESS - Cross-border BusinessIntermediation through Electronic SeamlessServices; Focuses on the development of anintermediation scheme that will facilitate the access toservices offered by national and regional government andbusiness service providers
CENTURi21 - Community Empowerment NetworkThrough Universal Regional integration for the 21stCentury; Will revolutionise the way people, organisations,administrations and enterprises seek, use and exchangeinformation and interact with essential services
CITATION - Citizen Information Tool in smartAdministrations; Aims at providing citizens with anintelligent ambient for the provision of governmental servicesin the administration sector
CLIPCARD - European Traffic Violation TicketPrepares the dissemination of a result of the TelematicsTrans-European Public Administration Network projectINFOSOND
CYBERVOTE - An innovative cyber voting system forInternet terminals and mobile phonesAims to contribute to the development of Europeandemocracy by enabling all its citizens the use of a modernelectronic voting system
DECOR - Delivery of Context-sensitive OrganisationalKnowledge; Attempts to develop integrated methods andtools for active, context-sensitive and self-adaptive deliveryand organisational knowledge at the process level
DEMOS - Delphi Mediation Online System; Willcontribute to close the growing distance between Europeancitizens and the decisions taken in Brussels and Strasbourgcaused by the difference between regional, national andEuropean interests
EBR-ON - European Business Register - OpenNetwork; EBR-ON aims to upgrade the technicalinfrastructure (Core technology) of the existing EuropeanBusiness Register; to release new user services; to setup adifferent marketing strategy; to enlarge the network as toinclude new Countries.
E-COURT - Electronic Court: judicial IT-basedmanagement; EBR-ON aims to upgrade the technicalinfrastructure (Core technology) of the existing EuropeanBusiness Register; to release new user services; to setup adifferent marketing strategy; to enlarge the network as toinclude new Countries
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EDEN - Electronic Democracy European Network; TheEDEN project contributes to stimulate and support thecitizens' participation in the decision-making process,specifically in the area of urban planning, through thedevelopment of Natural Language Processing tools, designedto make the communication between citizens and publicadministrations easier and more effective.
E-FORUM - E-Forum for European Government; The project will deliver benefits to citizens,administrations and industry in creating a EuropeanForum for e-Government consisting of governmentadministrations (users), intermediaries and industry.
EGOV - An integrated Platform for Realising OnlineOne-Stop Government; One-stop government refers tothe integration of public services from a citizen's point ofview.
e-MINDER - Electronic CoMmerce LeveragingNetwork for Developing European RegionsThe aim of the project is to create and formalise a wideEuropean Network of Leveraging Centres to promote in ajointly way e-Commerce in the remote and less favour regions.
eMUNIS - Electronic Municipal Information Services -Best Practice Transfer and Improvement Project; E-MuniS is a best practice transfer and improvement projectfor European municipalities.
eEPOCH - eEurope Smart Card Charter proof ofconcept and holistic solution; eEpoch will demonstratea scalable pan-European environment for legally bindingand secure internet based e-transactions using nationalelectronic ID cards in the domain of local and cross-border e-Goverment application services.
E-POLL - Electronic Polling System for remote votingoperations; The E-POLL project introduces innovativesystems to support the voting process based on leadingedge technologies or introducing new technologies.
EURO-CITI - European Cities platform for on-linetransaction servicesThe EURO-CITI project aims to specify, develop and test acommon architecture and related services targeting thepublic sector. The proposed services include tele-voting,electronic submission of forms and tele-consulting.
e-VOTE - An Internet Based Electronic VotingSystemThe objectives of the project are to design, implementand validate an Internet-based electronic voting systemthat will provide the required services for organizing andconducting a voting process.
KEELAN - Key Elements for electronic Local Authorities'Networks; By identifying 50 best practices among 700 localgovernment websites from 15 countries of the EU, KEeLAN willcarry out a benchmarking exercise to produce appropriatemodels and roadmaps for future electronic government at localand regional level.
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MAP - Mobile Adaptive ProcedureThe MAP project will develop a system supporting civilservants while they interact with citizens; it is a front-end e-assistance system.
PELLUCID - A Platform for Organisationally MobilePublic EmployeesThe aim of the Pellucid project is to develop a flexible andadaptable platform to assist organisationally mobileemployees at middle and higher levels of public sectororganisations.
TRUE VOTE - A Secure and Trustable Internet VotingSystem based on PKI; The proposal aims at testing acritical tool that will represent a significant value within theemerging services over the Internet.
VSIIS - Voluntary organisations and Social Inclusionsin the Information SocietyThe research will study the challenges of broad adoption ofIST solutions, exploring how voluntary organisations canfacilitate social inclusion in the information society.
WEBOCRACY - Web Technologies Supporting DirectParticipation in Democratic ProcessThe research will study the challenges of broad adoption ofIST solutions, exploring how voluntary organisations canfacilitate social inclusion in the information society.
E-government related pilots/experiments
In the countries below, different pilots/experiments have taken place inthe area of e-government. Especially about e-voting. In the list,experiments on input of digital votes and/or electronic counting of voteshave not been encorporated.
1. Germanya. Elections through the Internet on schools, companies, universities,
with senior counsels/youth groups.
2. Estlanda. During a consulting referendum (autumn 2004) a pilot was held in
Tallinn with Internet voting.b. Pilot in October 2005 for the local elections by means of Internet
voting.
3. Francea. May 2003; experiment for France citizens located outside the
country, so that they could vote through the Internet.
4. Austriaa. May 2003 an e-government strategy was made and pilots have been held by means of Internet voting.
5. Spaina. Different pilots through the country with Internet voting.b. Madrid had an experiment with Internet voting and mobile voting
6. UK; experiments with Internet voting, voting through mobiles, SMS votes, voting through digital TV. In May 2003 it was possible to vote
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electronically in 14 parts of the country; voting through Internet, touchtone phone voting, sms voting, digital TV voting.
7. Switzerland has done many experiments as well in the area of Internet voting
8. New Sealand; plans to set-up a pilot for the elections of 2008 (internet voting, mobile phone voting and with interactive TV)
9. Canada conducted a pilot during the elections of 2003 with Internet and phone voting.
10.US; Internet voting
M-government Conference titles of abstracts
The titles of the abstracts submitted to the Euro mGov 2005 conference(http://www.m-government.org) are the following:
● M-government Implications For E-Government In Developing Countries: The Case Of Saudi Arabia
● USE-ME.GOV (USability-drivEn open platform for MobilE GOVernment● A Privacy Preference Model for Pervasive Computing● Using A PDA Interface To Access ARCE● M-Government Framework● Mobile eHealth: Making the Case● Mobile Government and Organizational Effectiveness● Diffusion of Mobile Technology in Healthcare● Risky Business: Will Citizens Accept M-government in the Long Term● Multichannel Hub: An M-Government Case Study For The City Of Turin● Secure Mobile Services Infrastructures for m-government:
Personalised, Context-aware Composition of Pervasive Mobile Services● On the use of Policy Based Management for Pervasive m-Government
Services● Investigating The Potential Improvement of Patient Management
Systems In Hospital Ward Settings Using Mobile, Wireless Technologies● Mobile Government and Mobile Network Operators - Is Cooperation
Possible?● Enterprise Security Planning (ESP)● Security Planning using Zachman Framework for Enterprises● M-Government Safety Services: Evaluation Of Alternatives From
Stakeholders' Perspectives● Practical Application Of Biometrics For Security, Privacy And
Convenience Within The UK Education Environment● Developing Interactive Voice Response Interfaces for Large Information
Systems● Infrastructures for Mobile Government Services● M-Governance: A Mobile Computing Framework for Integrated Disease
Surveillance in India● Multi-channel Delivery of Services, The Road from eGovernment to m-
government: Further Technological Challenges and Implications● M-GOV: A Proposed Architecture For Mobile Government Transactions● Electronic Payments In The German Public Sector - Legal Issues● Prospects of Using m-Technologies for Disaster Information
Management in Bangladesh and other LDCs● Usability Is A Policy Issue: Minimising The "Hassle Factor" In Mobile
Payment Of The Central London Congestion Charge● A Mobile Alerting System for the Support of Patients with Chronic
Conditions
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● Mobile Government in Germany: Legal Aspects and Demands on Mobilizing the Administration
● Cashing Up With Mobile Money - The FairCASH Way● Securing Mobile Services● M-Government For Digital Cities: Value Added Public Services● M-government: South African Approaches and Experiences● Technical Implications And Business Recommendations For Building
Open And Interoperable Platform For M-Services Provisioning● RISER: Opportunities of Mobile Access to Trans-European Resident
Registers● It's Okay To Be A Dog On The Internet - Privacy And Trust In e-
Government● A Success Factors Model For M-Government● Evolution of m-Gov in Brazil● Business Process Modeling for m-government Applications● The Mobility Paradigm in Government Theory and Practice: A Strategic
Framework● Mobile Services for a Medical Communication Center: The eSana
Project● M-Governance: A Framework for Indian Urban Local Bodies● Government in the Palm of Your Hand● M-Government in Hungary● Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) Mobile Law
Enforcement System● Anonymous Code Lists For Secure Electronic Voting Over Insecure
Mobile Channels● Enabling Personalized And Context Sensitive Mobile Advertising While
Guaranteeing Data Protection● Mobile Disaster Management System Applications - Current Overview
And Future Potential● Measuring E-Readiness Assessment in Saudi Organisations: Preliminary
Results From A Survey Study● Transcending e-Government: a Case of Mobile Government in Beijing
Mobility has become a key component of modern live, strongly facilitatedby mobile connectivity over different access networks, smart tagging andmobile user devices. This huge networking and mobile computing potentialpaves the way for numerous applications in virtually all societal domains.Given the newness of these products and services, many of theseapplications are experimental and exploratory in nature, and subject topermanent evaluation and improvement: we learn to become seriousmobile movers.
The volatility of the field calls for intense monitoring, trend spotting andprogress reporting. The European Centre for Digital Communication(EC/DC) has set out to explore two of these promising fields: the worlds ofmobile tourism and mobile service delivery by governments (mobilegovernment).
This report is the result of a study that has been commissioned by theInfonomics and New Media Unit of Zuyd University. The report serves as abasis for further project-based development at the local and regional levelin the university's home base, the Dutch province of Limburg. The study iscomparative in nature, producing an inventory of experimental applicationsin both domains, with a strong emphasis on recent European and EU-sponsored joint projects. Based on four months of desk research, web-analysis and selected interviewing, the study presents an overview ofactivities and projects in the areas of mobile tourism and mobilegovernment.
Information
EC/DCPO Box 26066401 DC Heerlenthe Netherlands
T: 045 400 05 40F: 045 400 05 45E: [email protected]: http://ecdc.info
ISBN: 9077743049