Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
The use of public transportation may increase as the experience is planned and
monitored in real time on a personal basis. Road efficiency may increase, personal
stress may be reduced, and scarce resources saved.
Weaknesses could be the lack of ability or desire by some people to follow
machine instructions. This process can also be distracting and potentially
dangerous, if appropriate media and displays are not used and if the user is not
trained properly. Users may not trust the guidance being given and may believe it
is being deliberately degraded (to the benefit of others) or for other malicious
purposes.
Messages (or displays) offering guidance information must be timed early
enough to be useful and not too late to be useless. Depending on the velocity of
the user, the system would need a time window measured in seconds. Tracking
accuracy can greatly be improved by map matching (assuming a suitable map with
appropriate attributes is available). Choices of transport mode switch imply that
information spaces from many different systems may need to be converged or
mashed up. Some will involve static information such as maps and others dynamic
information such as bus positions. Routes are usually well-trodden paths,
therefore, some very simple positioning methods can be used in addition to the
more sophisticated methods such as GPS. For example, a simple time delay or the
reading from a pedometer or compass may be enough in some circumstances.
Minimization of communications can be achieved along an agreed route that has
been chosen in advance. Only when the initial plan experiences a deviation (due to
a wrong turn by the user or an unexpected delay detected by the central system)
does either party need to communicate [7].
Requirements include the convergence of all available portable positioning
methods described in Chapters 6 and 7. Links to associated information spaces
include GIS (for maps), identity management, security including DRM for images
and proprietary information, timetables, public transport tracking systems, police,
and security services. The route-planning software could include optimization,
including facilities to monitor progress of each journey (both locally and
centrally) in real time and include calculation of least time, distance, price, energy,
and environmental carbon emission costs.
4.9
Finding People
Finding people is a service to find the real-time whereabouts of work colleagues,
or family and friends. Users would be able to interrogate a database via a wide
range of devices including the Web, SMS text, mobile phone, and fixed phone.
They would then receive an answer to the question, “Where is <Name>?”
Interfaces can be voice, textual, or graphical via a map and be in the form of a
symbolic description such as an address or room number a relative distance away
and some context information, for example, whether the person is driving,
walking, or stationary.
