Last modified: 2016-05-03
Abstract
Due to the rapidly increasing popularity of mobile devices and cloud services, the trend toward web service utilization has recently become widely adopted in many spatial information applications. Within the great variety of spatial information, transportation data are very relevant to our everyday lives. In addition, transportation data are required by many and have plenty of location-based useful information. Through the frequent usages of GPS, tracking, and navigation functions on mobile devices, spatial data based applications have acquired a great deal of attention across governments and enterprises. There are numerous convenient applications now becoming accessible online continuously. Transportation mobile applications are also growing fast in the smartphone app stores.
Along with the global evolution in increasing public resources on social activities, promotion of government open data has become a mainstream policy in almost every developed country, and has achieved several significant accomplishments. According to the Open Data Index evaluation by Open Knowledge Foundation at United Kingdom in 2015, Taiwan has jumped to the top level globally. There is a multitude of open data, especially the real-time and practical information, provided by Taiwanese government. Therefore, this article attempted to use the TGOS SOA services and Open Data as data sources, combining GPS function of mobile devices to develop a basic LBS application. The application focuses on transportation information, to provide easy, speedy, and integrated information services.
This article selects public transportation systems around Taipei as a case study, choosing several common query functions to develop a server-side service system for essential information, such as route, schedule, ticket and position information of Taiwan High Speed Rail, Taiwan Railways, Taipei Metro System, as well as Taipei Joint Bus System. In the meantime, this study developed a client-side query system for Android phones as well. Furthermore, this study expected to raise transportation efficiency, and advance toward the objectives of energy conservation and reduced carbon dioxide emission.