SmartMMI at the kick-off for the Baden-Württemberg Institute for Sustainable Mobility (BWIM)

On October 27, Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences (Hochschule Karlsruhe – Technik und Wirtschaft) opened the Baden-Württemberg Institute for Sustainable Mobility (BWIM), the only one of its kind in the state, together with Minister of Science Theresia Bauer and Minister of Transport Winfried Hermann. Under the motto “Together we’re simply better on the move”, the institute aims to make an important contribution to sustainable mobility and thus to climate protection in the state. The SmartMMI demonstrator and concepts from the current project were presented at the kick-off events.

(Photo: TOBIAS SCHWERDT) Minister of Science Theresia Bauer during the mobility speed dating with Sarina Pfründer, Mayor of Sulzfeld

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SmartMMI with four scientific contributions at the HCII 2020

SmartMMI presents 4 (four) scientific papers at the virtual international conference Human Computer Interaction International (HCII) 2020. The HCI is one of the largest conferences in the field of Human Computer Interaction. Due to the corona pandemic, this year’s conference did not take place in Copenhagen between 19 and 24 July as planned, but for the first time in its history completely online. The four scientific contributions reflect the current research focus of the project SmartMMI.

The evaluation of people’s mobility is crucial for understanding traffic, traffic security and the effects of traffic planning. In this paper, we present our toolbox for analyzing and evaluating aspects of different mobility modes. Some of these tools support the participation of road users in the analysis. The tools either can be applied to implement analyses for planning purposes or for the evaluation of implemented measures. Our goal is to improve the understanding of mobility in all its facets and ultimately to increase user comfort, safety and the overall user acceptance in urban mobility.

Passengers in public transport expect passenger information to be exact, timely and appropriate to their situation. Therefore, future passenger information systems should adapt to the passenger’s context as precisely as possible. In this paper, we present a context model and describe our architecture for an adaptive, multi-device passenger information system. We will also present adaptation scenarios that show the application of our context model.

User studies to evaluate public transport systems are often hard to set up. While field tests provide important insight into realworld usability of public transport systems, they are also complex and expensive. Especially in early development stages of public transport related systems, field tests are not appropriate. However, usability of public transport systems is often depending on “real-life” context factors that are hard to reproduce in lab-based user studies. We have developed a mockup of a tram or train compartment that can be flexibly used to create a public transport experience in user studies. In this paper we will describe our experiences and recurring challenges with user studies in public transport, the design and set-up of our mockup, as well as give an insight into its applications in studies we conducted and lessons we learned.

Adaptive passenger information for an enhanced mobility experience may be the next step towards a smart public transport. In our research project, we have developed a multi-device evaluation approach for adaptive passenger information systems of mobile public displays. An adaptive passenger information system needs to be aware of the passenger’s context. In order to fulfill this requirement, we use the passenger’s personal devices like smartphones or smart watches as context sources. In this paper, we describe our approach of a multidevice passenger information system evaluation focusing on privacy aspects. We present three different methods of pseudonyms that were used to visually link the personal information on passenger’s private devices with the displayed information on the public display. In addition, we report on our evaluation results from a user study evaluating the acceptance and the intelligibility of the used visual pseudonyms.

SmartMMI @mFUND exchange of expertise on passenger data and information

(Foto: Annette Hillebrand, WIK)

On 12 March the “mFUND exchange of expertise: passenger data and information” took place in the DB mindbox in Berlin. Under the title “SmartMMI – Passenger Information PLUS in Public Transport”, University of Applied Sciences Karlsruhe presented the project plan and the current progress of SmartMMI to the participants of the mFUND accompanying research. Together, the participants of the expert exchange discussed challenges and best practice examples for data acquisition and data protection in public transport. The exchange networks mFUND projects of similar topics and different project statuses, thus the individual research projects benefit from mutual experiences.

SmartMMI choosen by BMVI for the mFUND video series 2019/2020

The smart light rail window of the future!

A smart light rail window where passengers can find out where to interchange, whether their travel is running like planed or whether there is a disrubtion. Our SmartMMI project, sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), was selected by the mFUND video series for funding in 2018/2019.

SmartMMI passenger cabin in the Messe Karlsruhe magazine of Baden TV

The SmartMMI research project was presented in the Messe Karlsruhe magazine on Baden TV. Our passenger cabin equipped with the smart light rail window received special interest. This passenger cabin will be exhibited at the international conference and trade fair IT-TRANS from March 3 to 5, 2020 (from minute 7:45).

User study on the usability of icons used on SmartWindow

On Thursday, January 16, 2020, a user study on the usability of the icons used on the SmartWindow took place in the IUMS laboratory. The aim was to find out the understanding and usability of our current interaction and visualization concepts with regard to the use of the icons on the SmartWindow and on the smartphone. The evaluation method “Card-Sorting” from the user experience design was used for this study.

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Presentation of the SmartMMI Laboratory Prototype

(Foto: Joachim Lembach)

The delegation of the National Taipei University of Technology (Taipei Tech) consisting of 22 students, four professors and two assistants visited their partner university on July 3 and 4, 2019 at the University of Applied Sciences Karlsruhe. The aim of the visit was the exchange of current research activities of both universities as well as the formulation of joint priorities for future cooperation.

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User study to pre-test evaluation methods for the SmartMMI field test

SmartMMI includes the development of a working prototype of a semi-transparent, interactive display for public transport vehicles. In this user study we were able to test several design prototypes in our mockup tram compartment and gained valuable insight on the usability of several aspects of our prototypes.

Additionally, towards the end of our project, a field test is planned. Two prototypical semi-transparent displays will be implemented in a tram of the local public transport provider. We are currently planning the usability evaluation of our system in the field and in order to do that, we conducted a study to test various evaluation methods in the mockup tram department. We wanted to determine the best suitable evaluation methods for subsequent studies in real public transport environments. Based on the results of this study, we developed our evaluation concept for the upcoming field test.

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SmartMMI presented at the first UITP training in Karlsruhe

(Foto: Michael M. Roth, MicialMedia)

Under the title “Context-Sensitive Travel Companion on Smart Public Displays in Public Transport”, the IUMS presented the first project results from SmartMMI to the participants of the first UITP training in Karlsruhe on 22nd November.

The SmartMMI project focuses on improving the information provision of passengers along their mobility chain. The industry and research partners combine a variety of data sources into an intelligent public transport data platform and explore ways to present the information to passengers on semi-transparent displays (SmartWindows) and on personal mobile devices (smartphones or smartwatches).

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