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This paper is a contribution to the Accessible Way-Finding Using Web Technologies. It was not developed by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and does not necessarily represent the consensus view of W3C staff, participants, or members.

Extended Abstract for the RDWG Symposium on Accessible Way-Finding Using Web Technologies

Accessible Map Annotation for Public Transportation

• Reinhard Koutny. University of Linz - JKU, reinhard.koutny@jku.at
• Klaus Miesenberger. University of Linz - JKU, klaus.miesenberger@jku.at

1. Problem Addressed

Mobility is one of the most vital abilities a human being needs to be able to perform on a daily basis to lead an independent life. People with disabilities mostly rely on means of public transportation to independently travel, however, to many of them, public transportation raise difficulties. Blind people do need to know the route by heart and run into troubles if unexpected events occur. Wheelchair users need certainly know that the whole route, normally including multiple pedestrian sections, is barrier-free. People suffering from learning disabilities have to train routes and often struggle handling unexpected situations like cancellations or detours and require tenser guidance than many other target group do. Nowadays there are already numerous navigation systems out there targeting this issue. However, none of these approaches work flawlessly and can ensure a safe travel. The reason for that arises amongst others from an incomplete, incorrect and outdated data basis of map annotations. As the physical environment relevant to travelers continuously changes, which not only applies to individual transportation, like road work for cars, but also to public transportation, it is problematic to keep track of this sort of changes. Persons, who rely on an assistive technology to support their reduced mobility skills, are especially affected by broken elevators or escalators, detours at transfer points weakly annotated by inaccessible and confusing signs or short-term changes of routes. Therefore, as a first, crucial step an improvement of data quality and enrichment of detail of information is of utmost importance.

2. Background

Public transportation companies barely address this issue. Over the last years crowd sourcing became an interesting alternative to commercial map systems. Openstreetmap [2] is probably the most popular one, which provides depending on the geographic area and the use case, in many cases sufficient results. There also exist several forks serving a special purpose, like openstreetmap-based variants for hiking and cycling, but also with focus on special target groups like people with disabilities. Wheelmap [3] for example aims at the requirements of wheelchair users and informs the user about the accessibility of buildings and also allows users to annotate new and updated information on their own. This information is kept on a very basic level and cannot be used for routing or automatic navigation easily. Look and listen map [1] focuses on blind and visually impaired users as target group. It allows tagging for instance accessible pedestrian crossings. This information could be used for navigation, but the data provided is still not complete enough to provide a useful outcome and input for routing and navigation, aside lab tests. To summarize, some map and navigation system do exist with focus on people with disabilities but the data basis is still too weak to provide a sufficient solution for use on a daily basis. The reason for that, is that it is, sometimes especially for users of this target group, difficult or cumbersome to annotate new items or update and correct existing ones to keep the information up-to-date. Besides, even if people would be willing to contribute, they are often not able to, due to the time pressure, which comes with public transportation, for example to catch the next train at an inaccessible route at a railway station. Therefore, a method to fuel the process of annotation with special focus on the requirements of traveling would greatly contribute to the overall data quality and completeness and create a fundamental corner stone for navigation and routing services.

3. Strategy

Hence, an ongoing project at the university of Linz targets this issue and tries to support the process of map annotation creation as far as possible and is especially designed to meet the requirements of users on the way during public transportation. The proposed approach is based on Openstreetmap and enriches the already existing item categories to meet the needs of people with disabilities during traveling using public transportation. It stores and categorizes objects and locations which are aids assisting traveling in the one or other way, are obstacles somehow hindering a traveler on his or her way or are object or places useful in any other way. These can be restaurants or just objects useful for orientation. The categorization and also the meaning to either target group (blind, visually impaired people, people with learning disabilities…), especially if an object or even a category is either a burden or an aid to a target group, will be evaluated and determined throughout the project in close cooperation with representatives and test users of each target group. Also the concept of operations is tailored to the needs of travelers with special needs. Therefore, it offers two modes of item creation. The first one is a traditional approach, but still being made accessible to blind users as well. A user, who experiences an object on his or her way, which is not annotated, but relevant to him or her and other users to safely travel, can simply create an item at the actual location. There is no need to cumbersomely find and determine the location on a small map on the screen of a smart device. The user can take the current location and only needs to add a name, a category, an optional description and a measure determining if the item is an aid or an obstacle to him or her. As many users who are on the way using public transportation, usually do not have time to create annotations, because they have to catch a train or similar, there is also an alternative way of annotation creation. The user can simply create an annotation stub, including the location again, but can leave blank the additional information. Instead, he or she can add pictures or voice memos, which is a fast and intuitive way of creating mnemonics. After that the annotation stub gets put in a stack for later completion. This allows to user to store all required information in a fast way, to interrupt the journey as little as possible and later on when there is enough time, he or she can, for example during the train ride, stress-freely complete the annotation, without being worried to forget important information.

4. Major Difficulties

The ease of operation is of utmost importance the guarantee a successful outcome. Therefore, the user interface needs to be tailored to each target group and in general the concept of operation needs be as simple and straight forward as possible. This is key, to motivate people to contribute to this crowd sourcing based approach. As in the project organizations representing each target group are partners, we are optimistic that we can address these issues adequately.

5. Outcomes

So far the project is in the implementation phase, so there is only little feedback from the target groups available. However, the basic idea seems promising to them and first prototypes will reveal the usefulness or the potential for improvement in the one or the other direction.

6. Open Research Avenues

The next step is further and more intense cooperation with stakeholders to ensure the accessibility to all target groups. Also a first prototype will be developed for a first cycle of an iterative implementation process tightly involving target user groups.

References

1. Electronic:accessiblemaps.org (2014) Look and Listen Map
2. Electronic:Openstreetmap Foundation (2014) Openstreetmap
3. Electronic:Wheelmap.org (2014) Wheelmap