4. Design of visualization tools

Guidelines to design route planners of public transport for socially excluded groups were defined. A three-step methodology was followed: (i) requirements elicitation; (ii) interfaces development; (iii) and usability evaluation. First, a literature review and interviews were conducted to identify the main social excluded groups as well as their main limitations and needs. Then a set of requirements for designing the user interfaces were proposed. Mock-ups were then assembled and validated with experts in software development for public transport and through a survey to the population.

Additionally, the VUMO ontology was extended with new concepts and rules, and a visualization tool for origin-destination flows data is being developed. It allows for exploration of OD matrices from various spatio-temporal perspectives, to suit stakeholders with distinct profiles. The application of ontologies to graph databases for public transportation data is being investigated. The previous year’s work on Spider Maps visualization was published and presented, and an extended version has been recently accepted for publication. At the end of this task an interactive visualization tool will be proposed, to allow the exploration of (unusual) patterns and mobility behaviour, yielding strategic and operational decisions that may shape the development and use of the optimization algorithms to be developed. The visualization tool will be supported by semantic web technologies, e.g. domain ontologies, which allow for a formal knowledge representation, to allow a data visualization process according to the users’ profile and the analytical tasks to be performed. 

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