This Technical Report is based on work undertaken to define the scope for a possible Technical Specification that would specify the information needed by blind and visually impaired people (VIP) when they are travelling. This information is primarily intended for users of road-based transport like buses, trolleybuses and trams, but it can also be used for subway, regional and inter-city trains. The Technical Specification that is suggested would aim to define the contents of the information required at an urban or regional level. Its goal would be to make consistent information for VIP who are travelling anywhere in Europe. It would define the nature and the structure of the information for VIP using public transport to make it familiar, homogeneous and consistent. The Technical Specification would be applicable to organisations and operators of facilities for Public Transport and related services, either urban or regional, who want to guarantee accessibility for all and comply with local laws and recommendations in that field. The suggested Technical Specification should comply with relevant laws and recommendations throughout European countries. Such a Technical Specification should define the information and remotely controlled functions that should be available for VIPs at stops, platforms, access areas and inside/outside vehicles. The provision and the updating of the available information would be undertaken by the Public Transport operators or their partners. It would have to be linked with existing information and management systems. A Technical Specification would identify the contents of the information, the events, the validity time periods and the information which should be offered by different classes of end-user devices. The Technical Specification would state which information is to be provided by each one of the different classes of end-user devices. Traveller information for Visually Impaired People is defined in a three layer top-down framework: 1. Contents of the information: this should be in accordance with relevant standards and other Technical Specifications (Transmodel, IFOPT, SIRI, TPEG, etc.) to achieve consistency of end-user information. All information has to be defined (including events for triggering, devices on which the information is presented and validity time periods). This will be based on use-cases; 2. Messaging and Dialogues: this part of the processing would have to comply with existing standards and Technical Specifications SIRI, TPEG, etc. to allow interoperability; 3. Hardware or physical media: this would define how to implement the messaging system specified above with different technical solutions to assure delivery of traveller information to the end-user. This could include collaboration with ETSI (layer for radio-communication). The work to develop such a Technical Specification may identify additional information elements that need to be added to existing standards and Technical Specifications. It is suggested that the first part of the Technical Specification should encompass only the first upper layer “Contents of the information?? – and it is on this layer that this report concentrates. A trip from one location to another location, often described as “door to door?? (PLACE to PLACE), of a VIP involves going through several steps and phases (using various transport modes). The Technical Specification would define the information linked to each step and area crossed during a trip of a VIP. It would also define the information supply-chain for the VIP’s traveller information and the updates needed. It would have to be based on the elements and objects which are described in Transmodel and/or IFOPT. The Technical Specification would need to take into account: - the various transport modes used during a PLACE to PLACE trip, - the information needed at each step in the PLACE to PLACE trip, - the different classes of end-user devices, (...)
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