featured – Open Knowledge Open Transport Working Group https://transport.okfn.org The home of the Open Knowledge working group on Open Transport Tue, 05 Jul 2016 10:51:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8 Launching the Linked Open Transport vocabularies https://transport.okfn.org/2014/10/23/lot/ https://transport.okfn.org/2014/10/23/lot/#respond Thu, 23 Oct 2014 10:23:52 +0000 https://transport.okfn.org/?p=86

How far do you live from work?

Did you answer this question in minutes or in kilometers? Many answer this in minutes. Now, imagine how machines would have to get to know the answer to such question for you: it would need a lot of data.

That data is in some cases, e.g., for Amsterdam, already sufficiently available as open data: open street map and the openOV initiative in The Netherlands help. Yet, to achieve this system, we need to do a huge job in integrating data and integrate these datasets on 1 machine. What if we can advance on the state of the art and use Semantic Web/Linked Data technologies to facilitate all this?

This is what I need for my PhD as well. So, we have started creating 4 vocabularies: one for transit feeds or timeschedules, one for categorizing transport datasets, one for road traffic events and one for real-time arrivals and departures of public transport.

One of these vocabularies has now been released: http://vocab.gtfs.org/terms# – the Linked GTFS vocabulary. You can help out building these vocabularies at our github repository, or you can just dig in and start using our terms. You can now browse this at our Linked Open Vocabularies project:

http://lov.okfn.org/dataset/lov/details/vocabulary_gtfs.html

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Open Transport: 4 focuses https://transport.okfn.org/2014/03/18/open-transport-4-focuses/ https://transport.okfn.org/2014/03/18/open-transport-4-focuses/#respond Tue, 18 Mar 2014 22:03:23 +0000 https://transport.okfn.org/?p=79

During the OKFN meetup in Athens, Greece, I gave a presentation on the 4 focuses for the Open Transport working group. It is at the same time an open call to collaborate with us in various projects. Everyone needs the 4 focus points described in the presentation. The Open Transport working group aims to bring together everyone who needs this.

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Open Knowledge Foundation Austria MeetUp on Open Transport Data took place on 14.11.2013 in Vienna https://transport.okfn.org/2013/12/02/open-knowledge-foundation-austria-meetup-on-open-transport-data-took-place-on-14-11-2013-in-vienna/ https://transport.okfn.org/2013/12/02/open-knowledge-foundation-austria-meetup-on-open-transport-data-took-place-on-14-11-2013-in-vienna/#respond Mon, 02 Dec 2013 14:23:37 +0000 https://transport.okfn.org/?p=73

About 2 weeks ago, on the 14th of November 2013 an Open Knowledge Foundation Austria (OKF-AT) MeetUp took place in the late afternoon with the title & topic: Open Transport (Data). The MeetUp was hosted at Fabasoft (one of the bigger Austrian IT vendors) in Vienna, Austria. The idea of this event was to present and discuss the current status of transport information systems in Austria and Open Data / Open Transport as well as to discuss how these sector can become more open and take a look into planned future steps of open transport in Austria.
OKF-AT-MeetUp-OpenTransport-small
FOTO: Copyrights: Fabasoft AG; Fotograf: Peter Ehringer
After a short introduction by Helmuth Bronnenmayer (Board Member of OKF-AT) telling the ~ 35 people of the audience about objectives and activities of the Austrian chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation (see slides: http://de.slideshare.net/okfo/okf-atmeet-upopentransport20131114) the topic of the MeetUp was introduced by Peter Parycek (Danube University Krems) and Robert Harm (open3) by giving an insight in the area of Open Transport in the MeetUp keynote – see: http://de.slideshare.net/okfo/okf-atmeet-upopentransportkeynote. Peter introduced the idea of open transport (data) and showcased the importance to open up transport data to (beside others) enable cross-border mobility services and apps. He also introduced the ODP AT – the Open Data Portal Austria project that develops an open data portal for all data – beside government data – in Austria (science, education, industry, NGO & NPO, citizens, OpenGLAM, et al) that will be launched in May / June 2014.
Following the opening keynote 3 short presentations of the City of Linz, by Egon Pischinger of Linz AG (provider of public transport in the City of Linz) where transport data is open but services / applications are still maintained by the City of Linz (although there are already several apps on Linz data in place today), see his slides: http://de.slideshare.net/okfo/okf-atmeet-upopentransportdatalinz. Big discussion with Egon & the audience were on the issue why the Linz AG thinks that there is still a need to create & maintain transport apps by the data providers (by themselves) and not starts to become a pure data provider. Linz AG argued that they do not see really stable maintaintence of the existing open transport apps for Linz these days.
2nd talk was held by Rainer Haslberger of the City of Vienna (see slides: http://de.slideshare.net/okfo/okf-atmeet-upopentransportstadtwien) where
transport data is also open in the data catalogue. Rainer explained in a very comprehensive talk the whole landscape of the Austrian transport information- and data system. This mainly consists of A) the GIP System that is the basic infrastructure of all transport / traffic routes in Austria – a system that for the first time brings together all data of these traffic routes accros the 9 provinces of Austria on a centralised national level and that has to be adapted to the INSPIRE directive as a next step (and thereby could (!) become open data also). And B) the VAO – Verkerhsauskunft Österreich = Information System on Traffic & Transport in Austria that puts all the additional information on top of the GIP System as traffic flow, schedules of trains, busses & other public transport et al. This data is NOT open data anyhow at the moment as there are several stakeholders involved in this project with different data sets as public administration as well as companies like the Austrian Broadcasting Company or the Austrian Automotive Club et al. The pitty here is that open data is not even a topic of discussion in the VAO project group at the moment – but possibly the MeetUp as well as following meetings & discussions can change this a bit!
The third presentation was held by Denise Recheid of REEEP about Open Transport Data in Developing Countries, see slides: http://de.slideshare.net/okfo/okfat-meetup-open-transport-data-in-entwicklungslndern. Denise showcased the huge problems of traffic systems and information in developing countries / mega cities but also pointed out the environmental aspect of these problems regarding e.g. carbon emission.

A comprehensive Q&A session as well as a networking session with catering & drinks completed the OKF-AT MeetUp on Open Transport (Data). So what about the findings of this event? Lets say the information- and data system of Austria in the field seems to be on a good way to be harmonised accross our 9 provinces and also some Cities already provide open transport data (as geoinformation, traffic routes or timetable information) in their respective data catalogues – BUT: A) there is no discussion how open data can change environmental problems of transport data in Austria, B) there are NO plans on how to open up the data of the Austrian central transport information system and C) there are only little thoughts about how to follow standardisation on European level (beside INSPIRE) to enable cross border services on (open) transport data – so a lot work still in front of us!

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Short history of routes computation https://transport.okfn.org/2013/09/23/short-history-of-routes-computation/ https://transport.okfn.org/2013/09/23/short-history-of-routes-computation/#comments Mon, 23 Sep 2013 12:40:30 +0000 https://transport.okfn.org/?p=60

Introduction

This is a cross-post from http://blog.tristramg.eu/short-history-of-routes-computation.html

I wrote a blog post in French that had some unexpected success (by success I mean that people actually read it). At least two people asked for an English translation. So here it goes, with some of the errors of the French version corrected.

Formally we would speak of “shortest path in a graph problem”. The goal is the same: what is the shortest way to go from A to B.

Route computation are nice as the actual use cases can be explained to anyone:

  • the GPS end user
  • the computer science student that at some point learnt the basic algorithms
  • there is still research going on, but it can be explained to anyone interested within a few pints

Personally, what I find interesting is how those algorithms evolved through time. Sorry for punctual technical details.

1956 – 1958: Ford, Moore and Bellman

The first suggested algorithm was published independently by those authors.

It is nowadays usually called the Bellman-Ford algorithm.

1959: Dijkstra

Edgard Dijkstra is Dutch.

He is one of the big names in computer science. He is know for his handwriting and quotes such as:

  • Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability
  • The question of whether Machines Can Think... is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim
  • Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California

He is the author of — brace yourself — Dijkstra’s algorithm published in 1959. It has been described in a two pages only article but the name stuck as the fundamental brick of route computations.

However, the algorithm we learn at school is not the one published by Dijkstra. It has a complexity of O(n²) while we are teached that complexity of the algorithm is O(n·log(n)).

We had to wait 28 year to get to it.

1987: Tarjan

The weakness of Dijkstra’s algorithm is its priority queue that returns what node to visit next. An article from 1987 by Tarjan (an other reference in the world of graphs) brings us to the “modern” Dijkstra’s algorithm.

Many variations have been tested to speed up the algorithm with mitigated success, such as A*, bi-directional searches, sacrificing the optimality or a combination of all that.

On a recent computer, computing a route across France takes around a second. Therefor back in the 90’s it was way to slow. There was a need to speed up the computation.

We had to wait 18 year to get to it.

2005: Dimacs challenge and rise of the KIT

The 9th Dimac Challenge was about routes computation. For this event the road network of the United States was published.

A large number of publications pulverised all the records. The algorithms are now fast enough to compute a route between two points on earth in less than a millisecond (more than a thousands times faster than the Dijkstra’s algorithm).

An overwhelming share of publications come from from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

The team members suggested many algorithms, but also tested nearly every possible combination between those algorithms.

There were so many publications it was hard to know where to look.

2008: consolidation with the Contraction Hierarchies

After this phase of exuberant creativity, we could extract the core substance to make the algorithm that will probably become the new reference: the contraction hierarchies.

It has been presented in a master thesis (so I am somewhat ashamed of my PhD thesis…) by Geisberger.

There is nothing really new, only the removal of superfluous ideas that made other algorithms too complicated to keep the smallest core that works well.

Everybody that is interested in algorithmic should read the algorithm and its demonstration of optimality. The first time I read it, I could not grasp how it worked. I had to walk through the demonstration to be convinced.

That algorithm is used in OSRM, a free route calculator based on OpenStreetMap data.

2009: public transit are still forgotten

At last we know to efficiently compute a route on a street network. What about public transit? Not so bright here.

The question was already studied in 1991 in the great PhD thesis of Eduard Tulp. But little happened since.

Performances are deceiving and trying to use the successes in street network failed.

In the article Car or Public Transport—Two Worlds H. Bast show the differences that exist between both means of transportation and that is not interesting to try to use the same techniques.

2010: transfer patterns, performance, at last!

It was summer, I had just sent my thesis manuscript to the examiners. Because of over-zealousness I read the latest article from H. Bast.

For the first time it was possible to compute routes using public transit within a few milliseconds in a large city as New-York.

If you looked closely, the was still a slight twist: the authors used the computing power of thousands of computers from Google. A massive pre-processing is the key to such good results.

Just two more years to wait to have an effective algorithm.

2012: Delling’s Raptor

Daniel Delling likes cool names (a previous algorithm was called Sharc). He chose Raptor for his new algorithm.

The proposed approach has no need for pre-processing and has better performances than the transfer patterns.

zoidberg_hooray

Hooray! Cars do not have any more the monopole on efficient algorithm. Raptor has the advantage to be rather simple and to have nice properties (too technical to bother you with them).

Intermission: opendata and science

Science needs data to be easily available. The DIMACS challenge was a success because big real life data set were published.

It took six years from the first high-performance street network routing algorithm to the first high performance algorithm on public transit. We had to wait so long until data sets were at last released.

It is the opendata movement applied to transportation that allowed that scientific progress.

2013: Connection Scan Algorithm

A last one! In an article very modestly called Intriguingly Simple and Fast Transit Routing the authors present the connection scan algorithm. It is slightly more efficient than Raptor but is considerably more simple.

When reading the article, and once again when implementing it, I was struck how braindead simple it is, but it works.

We went through 57 years of research to end up with an algorithm that could have been written at the same time as Dijkstra’s.

Hence a last quote of Dijkstra that seems very appropriate:

Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better

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One year and one day at the Open Transport WG https://transport.okfn.org/2013/09/21/one-year-and-one-day-at-the-open-transport-wg/ https://transport.okfn.org/2013/09/21/one-year-and-one-day-at-the-open-transport-wg/#respond Sat, 21 Sep 2013 12:35:01 +0000 https://transport.okfn.org/?p=55

It’s the 18th of September and 40 open transport experts gather in a small room in a conference center in Geneva (Switzerland). It’s precisely 1 year and 1 day ago that we were gathered in Helsinki to write the Open Transport Data Manifest. In meantime, this manifest has been used in the Italian Parliament, has been presented at several Open Data conferences and has been used to convince smaller transport agencies that this is the right way forward.

This one year has been a quest for problems and potential solutions. During the next year we will focus on a couple of projects we have identified as being the next steps. How we got there will be posted in a couple of blog posts during the next weeks.

Tristram at OKCon

What’s next?

Pieter

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Join us at OKCon https://transport.okfn.org/2013/09/13/join-us-at-okcon/ https://transport.okfn.org/2013/09/13/join-us-at-okcon/#comments Fri, 13 Sep 2013 13:12:51 +0000 https://transport.okfn.org/?p=53

Next week it’s OKCon! *cheers*

When you check out the program you can see that there are a lot of Open Transport sessions happening. You’re of course most welcome to join in!

On Wednesday between 14:45 and 16:00, we are organising a workshop with various people from our community giving a short lightning talk, but mainly with a discussion on what our future vision should be. This is the program of this workshop:

14:45 Warm word of welcome by Chloé Bonnet
What happened in 2012 and The Open Transport Data manifest by Pieter Colpaert
15:00: 3 lightning talks on “Making Data Available”

  • Tristram Gräbener: stations.io & crowdsourcing data

  • Joost Cassee: Creating an open transport data portal

  • Christian Helbling: publicly owned transport companies should have to open up their data by law

15:15 Questions for the 3 talks moderated by Chloé and Pieter
15:30 Plenary discussionWhat tools do we need to make this happen. What extra features can we imagine?

Moderated by Chloé and Pieter

15:50 Future Work

2 lightning talks on “Raising the user experience of being on the road”:

  • Roman Prokofyev: Collecting user history, creating user profiles

  • Chaohai Ding (Skype): Mash up transport data with other datasets to determine accessibility of the location/vehicle

16:00 Thank you and what’s next (bis)
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Apps and the City: Berlin Transport Hack Day https://transport.okfn.org/2012/12/06/apps-and-the-city-berlin-transport-hack-day/ https://transport.okfn.org/2012/12/06/apps-and-the-city-berlin-transport-hack-day/#respond Thu, 06 Dec 2012 11:26:43 +0000 https://transport.okfn.org/?p=37

Just a short note about the Transport Hack Day [Open Knowledge Foundation Germany](http://okfn.de/) just ran last week.

We ran the event together with the local transport provider, the Berlin government and the FH Potsdam.
The VBB released GTFS data, opened up their API and provided some geo datasets about entrances to stations.

We had over 120 people registered, lots of them were developers/designers and we had a really inspired atmosphere.
The output in numbers of apps was not as great as we would have liked due to broken datasets and the complicated API, but I think we will see some nice apps in the coming months.

* Website:
* Data:
* Source:

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Fork the Open Transport Data manifest https://transport.okfn.org/2012/11/10/fork-the-open-transport-data-manifest/ https://transport.okfn.org/2012/11/10/fork-the-open-transport-data-manifest/#respond Sat, 10 Nov 2012 17:53:45 +0000 https://transport.okfn.org/?p=27

Transportation is a major contemporary issue, which has a direct impact on economic strength, environmental sustainability, and social equity. Accordingly, transport data – largely produced and/or gathered by public sector organisations or semi-private entities, quite often decentrally – represents one of the most valuable sources of (Public Sector) Information (PSI, also called ‘Open Data’), a key policy area for many, including the European Commission.

This is the first paragraph of the Open Transport Data Manifest. During the OKFestival in Helsinki, we organised a PSI sectoral meeting on transport data. The manifest is a summary of the entire day, where all kind of stakeholders from over 15 different countries were invited to help think about informing European travelers as good as possible.

The first slide of the manifest. More on github

The manifesto document was then transformed into an infographic by Miet Claes and Michael Vanderpoorten (both members of iRail). The infographic is also available in slides style. Because we want everyone to be able to help with the manifest, and to reuse this work, we have published the source files on github. We invite you to fork the infographic and use it for your own slides on open transport.

Help sending this infographic to the policy makers who need to see it and let us know on the mailing list.

Pieter

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