Mobile service concepts and car-drivers related internet community systems for supporting both a real-time road safety assessment and a novel "dynamic ridesharing"-based urban smart mobility

Abstract

Road safety is a still unsolved issue in our modern society. Today, road accidents kill more people than wars. Besides, several major cities are merely asphyxiated by traffic congestion. The socio-economical and environmental costs of these two problems are terrifying. Our society needs safe roads and an efficient mobility in both urban and interurban road networks. This talk presents a series of ideas demonstrating how far novel forms of social networking (Pervasive Social Computing) coupled with both appropriate intelligent systems and the mobile Internet do meet Intelligent Transportation. The pervasive social computing should involve vehicles, smart infrastructures and travellers. Thereby, a very cost-effective and adaptive data and information collection infrastructure does result from this synergetic convergence. A series of interesting mobile service concepts are enabled. A form of real-time road safety support involving amongst others context-aware recommender and assistance systems comes into realistic reach. Furthermore, novel forms of mobility support should also profit from such a smart infrastructure. Just for illustration, the example of a novel urban mobility concept called "Mobility Ebay" or in short "Mo-Bay" is presented. Mo-Bay is based on the use of intelligent communication and information systems technologies to coordinate mobility needs, mobility demand, goals and actions in real-time through the efficient combination of multiple urban modes of transportation (individual cars, public transportation (bus and trams) and taxis). The concept is particularly human-centred in the sense that any developments are attuned to the needs of the users living in the urban areas and their surroundings.