NEWSLETTER. WISETRIP Project. Wide Scale network of E-systems for Multimodal Journey Planning and Delivery of Trip Intelligent Personalised data

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1 Nov 2010 N 6 Content of Issue 6 WISETIP Demonstration Success Business Model Thoughts in 17 th ITS World Congress In Real Cases - Updates Project contacts Project Wide Scale network of E-systems for Multimodal Journey Planning and Delivery of Trip Intelligent Personalised data THEME TPT The connected traveller in the city, region and world of tomorrow Consortium informs you! Are you a worldwide traveller? Are you willing to learn about Journey Planners? could help you! Read more about the project! EUROPEAN UNION Project Coordinator - R&D Director Science & Technology Park of Crete Vassilika Vouton, GR71500 Tel.: Fax: Via Pratese Firenze Tel.: Fax: Guest Editor, Research organization, Germany Dr. Xiwen ZHANG Tel.: Fax: xiwen.zhang@bpvac.de 1

2 2 Demonstration Success 1 Demonstration Success After successful laboratory test of the platform ( the systems and services have been successfully implemented and demonstrated during Before the systems could be tested, a number of organisational measures had to be taken following both the Evaluation Plan and Demonstration Plan. The main organisational and preparatory activities included the following: A survey was carried out in December 2009 on the implementation status at individual demonstration sites. The Focus Group for the pre-demonstration phase was established in February 2010, with 40 members. Training and guidance was provided for the Group before starting predemonstration activities. The Support Team was created in May 2010, with one contact person at each demonstration site. A help desk was set up by the Project Co-ordinator FORTHNET in co-operation with AUEB from the beginning of the demonstration activities. An information pack was designed and distributed to all test users, including user guider, summary description of journey planner at each demonstration site, testing requirements, and the questionnaires. The following five journey planners have been involved in the demonstration: Demo-Site Journey Planner Provider Finland Matka.fi / Journey.fi Destia Florence BusBussola ATAF / Best Engineering Greece Greek Journey Planner FORTHNET/AUEB Hangzhou Hangzhou PT Planner HPTC/FORTHNET/ AUEB UK JourneyPlan Project Coordinator Guest Editor 2

3 3 Demonstration Success - 2 Following the Demonstration Plan, the demonstration was carried out in two phases, i.e. Demonstration Phase I (Pre- Demonstration Phase) and Demonstration Phase II (public user trials). The Pre-Demonstration Phase was carried out over the period middle May middle June 2010 by a panel of some 30 professional testers (The Focus Group), aiming to test the capabilities and user acceptance of the platform and services in a controlled environment, particularly in terms of information quality, user friendliness, expected journey planning effort reduction, etc. The pre-demonstration delivered useful feedback. This was used for updating and improving the system before starting reallife public user trials. The Demonstration Phase II started mid July 2010, to demonstrate and evaluate the services in real-life conditions involving a large number of public users. The purpose of this phase was to extend the Pre-demonstration user acceptance evaluation and assessment, addressing the following two main assessment categories: User Acceptance, aimed at assessing the non-functional features of the system from the users perspective; Willingness to Pay, aimed at investigating the potential users willingness to use the system under various types and levels of charges. More than 600 users from China, Finland, Greece, Italy and UK have participated in the Demonstration Phase II. The first results of the demonstration have shown a high user acceptance of services and have presented an encouraging users willingness to pay for these services. Based on these positive outcomes, the Consortium is currently preparing appropriate strategies for exploiting results in the EU and worldwide. Project Coordinator Guest Editor 3

4 4 Business Model Thoughts Business Model Thoughts Drawing near to the end of Project we have to study the potential business models that will ensure the optimum commercial exploitation and utilisation of the project s results. A sustainable operation model for should at least ensure the smooth operation of the system, the occupancy of the necessary resources as well as the interconnection with all participating Journey Planners. The minimal operation costs should be estimated while in parallel, revenue sources have to be studied. Of course for any business model to succeed, should assure coverage over various transport modes and geographical areas that can bring the attention to wider traveller audience and larger population within Europe or even to other parts of the world (such as China, Australia, USA, Latin America) featuring significant travel activity from and to European countries. Therefore should seek the actions and synergies that will quickly lead to the adequate level of coverage. should assure the participation of more transport modes from more countries and regions. Therefore, it can seek cooperation with Journey Planners and Transport Operators from other places. A first outline of thoughts has led to the following alternative business models: a) A marketing entity model: becomes a portal. Its power lies in a large population of visits. Revenues come from the advertisement and promotion of Transport Operators and Journey Planners or other destination based services. Hits, visits and placement of specific links should be billed according to a certain commercial policy. b) etourism agent model: becomes an electronic distributor, a salesman of ticketing services. Henceforth it acts as an agent of cooperating transport operators or other ticketing sales organisations that offer an online ticketing interface to so that its user can buy tickets for the chosen services. deserves a commission from the services sold. c) Subscription / usage based tariff model: is a value-added service provider for travellers. It provides online and continuous information for planned and registered trips. In that case, revenue is expected from usage. Registrations and/or messages might be charged under a certain policy that should be attractive and rational, remaining in accordance with the monitored willingness to pay. Project Coordinator Guest Editor 4

5 5 Business Model Thoughts 2 We can consider two different cases for the subscription model: End Customer Subscriber Model: The traveller is the user who registers and pays for the usage. B2B Subscription Model: The actual user is a travel & tourism office who acts for the traveller s benefit. The tourism office can use the system to provide value-added service to improve customer satisfaction. Marketing etourism agent End Customer Subscription Subscription B2B only acts as a marketing entity that bases its revenues on the advertisements and promotion of TOs and JPs or other destination based services. uses the chosen trips and links their partial trip data to online ticketing services and/or other tourism sales. Commission fees are applied for ticket sales. End users of services, do optionally register themselves, store trips and enable certain notifications. Usage can be done on a subscription basis. Payment corresponds to a certain, measurable amount of trips or messages. Tourism professionals are the users of. They register trips of their customers enable certain notification plans. Usage is done on a subscription basis and payment corresponds to a certain, measurable amount of trips or messages. The selection of one of the above mentioned exploitation directions does not mean that the provider cannot choose to combine two of them or even all three options. The most obscure (as conflicting) combination will be the case for to be an etourism agent selling tourism services and in parallel providing services to tourism professionals under the B2B case of Subscription Model. More information on the alternative business models, a comparison of them in terms of extra development effort, marketing requirements, user & market acceptance risk, investment and operation costs and profitability, as well as a detailed competition analysis will soon be available within project deliverable D7.4 Exploitation Plan. Project Coordinator Guest Editor 5

6 6 Presence in 17 th ITS World Congress WISTRIP Presence in 17 th ITS World Congress The 17 th ITS World Congress, took place at the Busan Exhibition & Convention Center in South- Korea from October 25 to 29, 2010, with the centre on the theme, Ubiquitous Society with ITS. Many of the world's distinguished scholars and experts attended the congress providing the opportunity to obtain the latest valuable information and experience a wide array of technologies. With some delegates and over exhibition visitors it was the largest ITS event in the world. was invited to present the project and its results in the special session 62 Use of Mobile Devices to Provide Public Transport Information. The session aimed to explore the use of mobile devices to provide public transport information, covering topics such as location-based information on mobile devices. The project results were presented in the session by Pekka Eloranta from Mobisoft. The presentation raised several questions and a concrete expression of co-operation interest by the In-Time project ( In addition to Mobisoft, East Japan Railway Company, Urban Public Transport Organisation of Thessaloniki, Greece, AustriaTech and University of Washington, USA presented their papers. The session was moderated by Carol Schweiger from TranSystems Corporation, USA. Project Coordinator Guest Editor 6

7 7 in Real Cases - Updates Updates of in UK Development of the UK s Traveline Journey Plan network is progressing and from September 2010 testing of the full UK JP data set is now available through any of the regional sites. This has resulted in the possibility of testing trips through to/from partner sites to anywhere in the UK. Updates of in Hangzhou, China As the city in China, Hangzhou has a leading position in use of intelligent public transport systems and services in China. After joining project, Hangzhou has accelerated ITS development and implementation activities. The current traffic and traveller information services includes the infrastructure platform containing Internet Data Centre (IDC) at the core, with resource management, data processing, data acquisition, video monitoring, information services and basic management. The Bus travel real-time information service system and Intelligent Public Transportation integrated platform are under construction, which will provide messaging services for bus routes, bus stations, bus transfer, real-time vehicle arrival information inquiry, and public bicycle service location, bus IC card recharge locations, etc. Updates of in Florence, IT Maintenance of the communication protocol between the Florence ATAF-Bus Bussola Journey Plan and the platform, in order to continue the successful results achieved by the project and evaluate any further exploitation. is now linked to the ATAF home page ( HCTRC, China YLE, China GR (Co-ordinator) Hellenic Telematics Applications company AUEB-RC / TRANSLOG, GR Athens University of Economics and Business ETRA SA, Spain High tech group for mobility and public services Mobisoft OY, Finland SME focused on passenger transport telematics University of Aberdeen, UK School of Geosciences, Centre for Transport Research ATAF Spa, Italy Public transport company of Florence MemEx srl, Italy Engineering company in field of Mobility and ICTs Germany Research organisation in urban planning and ITS ANGUS Transport Forum, UK Non profit-making organisation DESTIA Oy, Finland Company operating in traffic and infrastructure sector Public transportation research centre chzjhz@163.com Company specialised in ITS jingxiong.ma@yle-china.org Project Coordinator Dissemination Manager Guest Editor 7