Framework of Aspects for the Evaluation of Multimodal Journey Planners

Abstract

Nowadays, several journey planners are available for users with various functionalities. The aim of this research was to provide an overview of European journey planners considering the perspective of the user. Therefore, a framework of aspects was defined, which contains aspects of route planning services, booking and payment, handled data, and supplementary information. Based on these aspects, an evaluation method was elaborated to compare and rank the journey planners. The method consists of two main steps. First, the journey planners were compared (scoring) to each other, which resulted in the general evaluation number. In the scoring step, multi criteria analysis was adapted, because it produces clear and comparable results. As a second step different user groups were introduced and, using preferences of these groups (weighting), the average evaluation number was calculated. Finally, the elaborated method presented a quantified evaluation and ranking of multimodal journey planners, which supports choosing suitable journey planners for the users.

Study of travellers’ preferences towards travel offer categories and incentives in the journey planning context

“…An important role among them is the development of multimodal cross-border journey planners [ 7 – 10 ]. Currently, unimodal, urban and regional journey planners dominate [ 6 , 11 ], as the development of large-scale European multimodal journey planners is hampered by insufficient travel data integration, a large number of travel service providers, and the requirement of significant investments to maintain it.…”

“…Multimodal transport is recognised as a key element of sustainable transport, as it takes advantage of combining modes of transport [ 5 ]. Although several journey planners across Europe have been developed, many have focused only on one mode of transport or have been able to plan trips only within a particular geographical area [ 6 ]. Thus, if travellers want to plan a trip across several regions or countries, they must combine multiple journey planners, which makes trip planning difficult.…”

The Importance Of Open Data Accessibility For Multimodal Travel Improvement*

“…As an additional, partially personalised feature, the service offers the possibility to plan a daily schedule of activities including trips for the day. The system suggests the most convenient routes for the user based on that plan [35].…”

“…There are a number of active multimodal planners in the EU with different functionalities. Most include basic functions/criteria for selecting a multimodal route, and only a few offer some degree of personalisation [35][36][37].…”

The Influence of Information Services on Public Transport Behavior of Urban and Rural Residents

“…Stated preference (SP) surveys are important tools, which help forecast decisions, suggesting to respondents' questions about their possible choices in hypothetical situations given a specific set of conditions. Stated preference methods are widely used in travel behavior research [51][52][53]. Therefore, the SP methods were adopted in the questionnaire.…”