Intelligent Navigation

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Intelligent Transport Systems 2, University of Twente

“Intelligent Navigation”

Use of travel condition information in navigation systems

Group 4

K. Kant 0043389 S. Beumer 0022829

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Intelligent Transport Systems 2, University of Twente | Group 4 – K. Kant & S. Beumer 2

Management Summary

Navigation systems are more and more used by car drivers to find the shortest or fastest route to their destination. Unfortunately these systems cannot ‘see’ what the traffic conditions are or will be in the near future. A new navigation system, Intelligent Navigation, uses information about traffic conditions to improve the route choice of the system and makes mobility more reliable. This report discusses the development, deployment and assessment of Intelligent Navigation.

To be able to use traffic data for improving the routes the system needs additional components in comparison with normal navigation systems to be able to get information about traffic conditions. Also useable data of traffic conditions needs to be available. This data is being collected using mobile phones tracking. The mobile phone provider sends the information to the data processing centre. This data is transmitted to the navigation system along with other traffic information from for example the road operator. The global positioning system is used to determine the position of the car itself. The destination of the trip is given by the driver and then the navigation system is able to determine the fastest and shortest route on the basis of this information.

To determine the user needs for the systems’ interface a web based questionnaire is used. About 100 respondents were counted and this information was processed. This resulted in the lay out for the interface according to the information in table 1.

Displayed standard Displayed in case of unexpected events

 Standard route  Alternative route

 Expected arrival time standard route  Expected arrival time alternative route

 Expected travel time standard route  Saved travel time alternative route

 Distance to destination standard route  Saved distance alternative route

 Traffic conditions in the neighbourhood

Table 1 - Interface properties

A market assessment has been used to determine the position of TomTom as a competitor. It is expected that the price for dynamic navigation systems will be reduced due to more competition. Also investments in marketing and research and development will rise. The RAID approach has been used to determine the biggest threats when deploying the system. The following ones are considered to be the five biggest risks.

1. Bad publicity for the system 2. Wrong maps inside the system

3. TomTom is able to maintain a too big market share 4. No possibilities for cooperation with phone company 5. The system is too expensive

Considering these conditions and threats a deployment strategy is developed. This strategy is based on four phases; the development, market introduction, gaining market share, and maintaining market share. These four steps have their own characteristics describing how a stable business situation and brand can be established. It is considered important to have a reliable system for a good price.

An impact assessment has been used to determine the impact of the system. It is expected that the system will result in spread traffic network based and time based as well. Because drivers have more information, both pre-trip and on-trip. The infrastructure based information systems are probably

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less needed when a lot of people have the displayed information already visible in their own vehicles. The system will also result in less delay times on the network as well as a more reliable travel time. This is partly expected on the basis of a second questionnaire that has been distributed online as well. A total of 49 useful respondents were collected that filled in the stated preferences questionnaire resulting in 581 choices. Two utility functions are determined for describing the choice between a standard route (SR) and an (shorter) alternative route (AR).

 𝑆𝑅 = − 4.67 ∙ 𝑥₂ (1)

 𝐴𝑅 = 1.42 − 2.75 ∙ 𝑥₃− 0,82 ∙ 𝑥₄ (2)

With x2 = delay at the standard route, x3 = extra length of the alternative route and x4 = The use of secondary roads in the alternative route. Also the trip length is investigated but resulted in having no significant effect on the route choice. Using these results the probability of the use of the standard (SR) and alternative route (AR) can be calculated with:

𝑃 𝑆𝑅 = 𝑒𝑆𝑅

𝑒𝑆𝑅_+𝑒𝐴𝑅 and 𝑃 𝐴𝑅 = 𝑒𝐴𝑅

𝑒𝐴𝑅_+𝑒𝑆𝑅 (3)

Using this model some consideration about traffic modelling have been made. It is expected to be possible to model this situation in a dynamic traffic model. Using data from the second questionnaire and other data bases gives the input.

Looking at the whole project it can be concluded that the development and a good deployment of a new product are very difficult. Different assessment methods are very important for resulting in a high quality product. The users are one of the most important stakeholders and a good assessment of their needs is crucial for the success of the navigation system. From a more business point of view, the deployment strategy regarding competitor TomTom is very important. Also the cooperation with a mobile phone company for the collection of traffic data is one of the first steps towards success.

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Preface

This report describes the development of Intelligent Navigation. It is part of the course Intelligent Transport Systems 2 (542062). The past period we have applied the knowledge and skills collected during the course Intelligent Transport Systems 2 (542061). We proudly present the final result of the hard work we have completed.

We like to take into considerations some thankful moments. Personal words of appreciation go out to Bart van Arem, Mohamed Mahmod, Nina Schaap and Thijs Muizelaar. Without their help at certain times we would not have been able to present this report in its present form.

Sjoerd Beumer Kees Kant

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1 Introduction

Improving the world a little bit, is an often heard reason for researchers to work with persistent devotion on new and innovative developments. The same can be said for the field of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). New,mostly high technological systems are developed to improve safety, comfort, sustainability and optimality in human mobility. Unfortunately not all effort can be put in ‘improving the world’ but many (negative) side effects and social or economic conditions also need attention. Both ingredients are assessed in this project where a new ITS system is designed and assessed. Not only the technological component is being addressed to, but the human, social and commercial conditions as well. To guarantee a successful market implementation of the system, the project is being worked out from a business perspective.

Navigation systems are more and more used by car drivers to find the shortest or fastest route to their destination. Unfortunately these systems cannot ‘see’ what the traffic conditions are or will be in the short future. It can happen that the shortest route makes you strand in heavy congestion while faster routes are possible if only the navigation system would know where the congestion is. The proposed system uses information about traffic conditions to improve the route choice of the system and makes mobility more reliable,... Intelligent Navigation!

This report discusses the development, design and assessment of this new navigation system. The focus of the research lies on the technical design of the system, the user needs and the market deployment with TomTom as a big competitor in the sector of industry. Chapter two describes the system, components and architecture. Chapter three focuses on the users, the drivers. The main questions asked in this chapter are: ‘What are the user needs?´ and ‘How will the users respond to

the system?’. Two questionnaire are used as input for answering these questions. The fourth chapter

analyses the other stakeholders in the development, deployment and use of the system. This is an important base for the assessment of the market conditions in chapter five. The impact assessment is being done using the Converge approach (ERTICO, 1998) and focuses on two stakeholders; the road operator and competitor TomTom. For this last stakeholder a deployment scenario is designed and risks in this deployment are assessed using the RAID-approach (Gaillet, 1999).

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2 Intelligent Navigation – System Description

The first step is to identify the systems properties. How does the system look like and how is it build. This chapter determines the system architecture on three field; physical, functional and communicational architecture. With these three types of architecture descriptions, a complete description of the system’s components is given, including the working and relations. Before the architectures are described some steps are needed. First the system’s lay-out is described (section 2.1). From this, solutions for the different components are defined (section 2.2). All options are analyzed by describing the positive and negative properties. Finally the best solution is chosen and described in one of the three different architectures (section2.3).

2.1 System lay-out

Figure 1 shows the basic lay-out for the system. The main components and data streams are defined and related to each other. The light (blue) components are (likely to be) within the navigation system, while the darker (green) components are external components. The arrows represent the data streams.

GPS Receiver

Maps

Traffic Data Receiver

Route System Traffic information

provider GPS sattelites

Driver

Interface

Figure 1 – System Lay-out

Each component and main data stream is described in table 2. The precise working of the navigation system (and especially the component that is called ‘Route System’ in this lay-out) is not excessively described in this research. Rather a more abstract description is used for the working of the route system. For the research the ‘external shell’ of the navigation system in the form of the traffic data receiver and interface is the most interesting subject. The route-system itself is considered to be like a ‘black box’.

Component Description

Route System This is the main component of the system where all information is used to calculate the

desired route

Maps The maps are used as input for the route calculation. The maps must be consistent with

the systematic used by the route system

GPS Receiver The GPS system is used to determine the current location (and speed). The receiver can

calculate this location based on the signals from the GPS satellites.

GPS sattelites The GPS satellites send out a signal from which an exact location on earth can be

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Interface The interface is used to let the user (driver) communicate with the system. In most

navigation systems this is a audio-visual component

Driver The driver is the user of the system and determines the desired destination. The driver

also has preferences about the route he receives from the route system.

Traffic Data Receiver The traffic data receiver can receive information about traffic conditions and

communicates this to the route system

Traffic Information Provider

Before the traffic data can be received it must be transmitted. This is done by the ‘traffic information provider’ component. How the information provider gets this information is let out of consideration at this stage.

Map data – The data from the maps are used by the route system to calculate the best route

GPS-signal – The GPS signals are used by the GPS receiver to calculate the current location

Current location – The current location (and speed) are used by the route system as input. This is (in most cases) the starting location for the route calculation

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Destination – The driver determines the endpoint of the trip. This is processed by the interface and used by the route system for the calculation of the route

Traffic information – The traffic information must be sent to the navigation system. There are many possibilities to do this (see section 2.2)

Received traffic information – After the information is received by the receiver the information is passed on to the route system

Route – After all data is processed by the route system, a route is proposed by the route system. This route is then communicated to the driver using the interface

Directions – The interface uses the information about the proposed route to inform the driver about the driving task. This can be done in different ways, which can be setup by the user

Table 2 – Component and data description

2.2 Components

The system lay-out described the different components of the system. For many components there are different solutions. This section discusses for each component the possible options and their properties.

Route system

The route system is the core of the navigation system. In this component all information and data are used to determine the route according to the preferences of the user. The operation of the route system is not subject of research and therefore it is expected to be a black box that can calculate the most optimal (shortest or fastest) route when all information and data is available.

Maps & Map data

The maps are also treated to be part of the core of the navigation system, but are mentioned separately. This is done because the maps need to be compatible with the traffic data. During the research this fact is treated as a boundary condition.

GPS satellites, signal and receiver

The GPS part of the navigation system is expected to be the same for this new system as it was for the original navigation systems. No additional properties are needed to give the system information about the current location and speed. There is a possibility to use the data about location and speed of equipped vehicles to monitor traffic conditions, but this will be discussed later in Traffic Data

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Another interesting development is the new European positioning system Galileo (ESA, 2007). This system is expected to be operational in 2012. The positioning is more accurate than the current GPS system (millimetre accuracy). The compatibility of the navigation system with Galileo could be an important feature to assure future use of the system.

Interface

The interface is the connection between the system and the user. The user can insert its destination and preferences through the interface and gets information about the calculated route. Also other information can be given to the user like places of interest, gas-stations, alternative routes, speed controls or traffic information. Most navigation systems use audio-visual components to communicate with the user like a screen and spoken directions. The interface is subject of research in the user needs assessment. ‘Which type of information does the user want’, and ‘when must the

system propose a new route’ are questions that are asked when developing the interface. The

complete user needs analysis can be found in chapter 3. The following aspects will be initially designed to be present for the user.

Displayed standard Displayed in case of unexpected events

 Standard route  Alternative route

 Expected arrival time standard route  Expected arrival time alternative route

 Expected travel time standard route  Saved travel time alternative route

 Distance to destination standard route  Saved distance alternative route

 Traffic conditions in the neighbourhood

Table 3 - Interface properties

They initially will not all be designed to be presented the same way. The aspects on the left will all be standard displayed in the main screen. The shown traffic conditions are traffic flows and speed limits. The aspects on the right will only appear if an improvement in travel time can be made. The level of improvement is initially set at 10%, but can be changed manually. The saved travel time and expected arrival time of this route are given by spoken text if asked for. Manually the other aspects can be chosen as well to use other means of presentation. Audio, either alarm sound or voices, is put in the system as an option. All options can be changed according to personal needs in a menu using the touch screen.

Driver

The driver (or user) is the person who uses the system to get informed about the route from a certain location to a destination. As mentioned in the previous section, the user interacts with the system by the interface. The user is not a part of the system but is very important for the proper working of the system. Therefore, user needs are an important part of the stakeholders analysis. The needs of the drivers are likely to differ between persons, thus the system has to be able to adjust to these different needs. Finally the system is also expected to change the behaviour of the drivers and indirectly also traffic. This is also part of the research and is discussed in chapter 6.

Traffic Data Collection and Processing

The objective of data collection and processing components is to collect and process traffic data to be input for the route choice. There are many possibilities for the collection of traffic data and the same can be said for the properties of the data itself. Table 4 shows the properties of three types of data collection methods. The complete analysis can be found in appendix A.

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Type Advantages Disadvantages

Infrastructure based (induction loops, video systems)

 Easy to measure

 No additional systems necessary

 Only on highways (no regional and urban roads)

 Only available via road operator

 Lower refresh rates because of processing by road operator Vehicle based – probe vehicles or

feedback from the navigation system

 No dependence on road operator

 High resolutions possible when number of users is high

 Data collection and processing in own supervision

 Costly to have sufficient number of probe cars

 Also secondary roads can be monitored

 Instant communication needed from probes Driver based – cell phone tracking  High resolutions possible

 No dependence on road operator

 High refresh rates possible

 Good representation about traffic conditions

 Central server needed for data processing

 Cooperation needed with mobile phone provider

 Privacy issues

Table 4 – Summary of types of data collection

Because of the independence of the road operator and high possible resolution of the traffic data the choice is made to collect the data using cell phone tracking. With this method an estimation on traffic condition is made by monitoring the connections all mobile phones have with the closest antenna. Access to data about mobile phone connections is crucial and therefore cooperation is needed with a mobile phone provider. To enhance the quality of the traffic information other information sources are used. Therefore a central collects all information and processes this information to make it ready for the user.

Traffic Data Communication and Receiver

As described in the previous section traffic data information has been collected and processed. Now the information is ready to be transmitted to the navigation system in the car. For this process a communication channel and a corresponding receiver are needed. There are several combinations that can be used. Possible solutions for the communication channel with compatible receivers are RDS-TMC, TPEG and VICS. Receiver types are pre-trip updates, radio broadcasting, infrastructure based communication or mobile phone systems. The tables below show a summary of the properties of the channels (table 5) and receivers (table 6). A more complete analysis and explanation of the systems can be found in appendix A.

RDS-TMC  Infrastructure is already available

 Cheap

 Limited possibilities for data transmission

 Low possible refresh rate

TPEG  Flexible data lay-out

 Designed for transmitting traffic information types

VICS  Works good in Japan  Japanese system (not

available in Europe)

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Pre-trip update (internet)  No additional communication channels needed

 Not available during the trip

 Not up to date with longer trips

Radio broadcast  Infrastructure already exist

 Large communication area

 Difficult to personalize information

 Available for everyone (no possibilities to limit access) Infrastructure based

communication (infrared, short radio transmission)

 Location based information possible

 Costly to make new infrastructure

 Difficult to implement nationally

Mobile phone (GSM, GPRS, UMTS)  Individual information possible

 Possibilities to charge users

 Universal system, can be used in every country

 Infrastructure already available

 Costs for every data transmission

 Dependence on mobile phone company

Table 6 – Summary of types of communication devices

From the analysis can be concluded that the TPEG standard is the best type of traffic data communication. The flexibility of the information that can be transmitted and the well-designed structure make it very useful for this application. The best communication device is the use of the mobile phone standards like GSM, GPRS or UMTS. The information can be personalized and no large investments are needed in the systems infrastructure because the mobile phone network is already available in most countries. The disadvantage that there is a dependence on the mobile phone company, but this is expected to be minor, because cooperation is already needed for the traffic data collection.

2.3 Architectures

Now the three most important architecture types are used to give a full description of the system. A visual representation of the architectures is given on the next page in figure 2. The squares represent the physical components, the diamond shapes are the communicational architectures and the backgrounds give the main functionalities of the complete system.

The functional architecture describes the main functions of the systems and the relation between them. Four main functions are defined as can be seen in figure 2. The relation of the functions with the other architecture types is clearly visible. The navigation system itself processes the incoming data of GPS and traffic information and calculates the trip characteristics. It also provides the user with information and adapts to user preferences. The functional architecture gives also an indication for the responsibilities. The data collection and processing is under the supervision of the navigation system provider in combination with the mobile phone company. The data transmission is for its functionality dependant on the mobile phone company and the GPS signal is the responsibility for the American Government (which owns the GPS system). The navigation system is property of the user, but the navigation system provider has some responsibilities for support and the working of the system.

The physical architecture describes the physical components in the system. All components are systems that have a certain information or data as input and output. This way the relation with the communicational architecture is easy to be noticed.

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GPS-functionalities D a ta t ra n s m is s io n

Data collection and processing

Data processing, route calculation and information provision . GSM Antenna GSM Receiver Data Processing Centre Mobile Phone Provider Other traffic information providers GSM Antenna Mobile

Phone Connection Location of mobile phone Mobile phone tracks Traffic information

Route Module Processed traffic information Interface Destination

GPS receiver Current location GPS

satellites GPS Signal

User Destination

Route & Directions

Processed traffic information (TPEG-format) Processed traffic information (TPEG-format) User Route & Directions D a ta tr a n s m is s io n Physical Component Communicational Component Functional Component

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2.4 System Classification

The final section of this chapter is the classification of the system in the transport system layer model. The system is used by drivers. Primarily this will be car drivers, but also in freight transport the system can be used. The means of transport is thus clear. The system has an impact on the ‘traffic market’ (see figure 3) where the system helps users with the choice which infrastructure to take, especially which route.

Travel market Traffic market Transport market People, Products Travellers, Load Units Means of Transport Infrastructure

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3 User Needs

This chapter discusses the user needs assessment. Input for the user needs analysis is a questionnaire. This is used for analyzing the interface attributes. The questionnaire is first shortly being described (section 3.1); the complete lay-out and the results of the questionnaire can be found in the appendix B. The most important results are presented in section 3.2. This has been used as input for the design of the interface as discussed in section 2.2 already.

3.1 Questionnaire One – User Needs

The first questionnaire is used to determine the user needs for the system. These needs determine the lay-out of the interface. Because it is impossible to assess an infinite number of attributes, a choice is made which attributes are used. The attributes that were thought to be important for the interface are the original route, the traffic conditions in the neighbourhood, the travel and arrival time, and distance to location. These all account for both the original and the alternative route. The saved travel time and distance when taking the alternative route are the last two attributes.

Second the questionnaire is used to determine when the system should present an alternative route and how. The way the availability of an alternative route and its characteristics (saved time, saved distance, and expected arrival time) are presented to the driver is suggested to be either visual or by sound or both. Third, other aspects were briefly considered like usefulness of the system and willingness to pay.

The questionnaire is distributed digitally through the internet (Thesis tools, 2008). This is an online system for questionnaires for college-related research. Over 100 respondents filled in the questionnaire, of which 88 were useful. The main reason for not using the other questionnaires is because these were not filled in completely. The majority of the respondents were male (70% versus 30% female). Some other characteristics of the group of useful respondents are shown below in figures 4 and 5.

Figure 4 – Respondent characteristics (n=88) Figure 5 – Respondent characteristics (n=88)

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3.2 Questionnaire Results

All of the attributes that were presented to the respondents appeared to be important or very important for most of them, as shows figure 6. The traffic conditions scores best, with less than 10% of the respondents considering this information (very) unimportant. The saved distance when choosing for the alternative route scores worst, but is still considered unimportant by less than 40%.

Figure 6 – Desired information (n=88 for every attribute)

An improvement in travel time was considered more important than an improvement in distance to be travelled. People prefer to have a visual presentation of the aspects mentioned, but do not have a preference for the level of detail. Only the availability of an alternative route is thought to be important to present by a sound, for the other aspects people do not clearly prefer a presentation. When the alternative route is presented, an alarm sound is preferred. When presenting the details, spoken text is preferred. Figures 7 and 8 give the results discussed.

Figure 7 – How to see the information? Figure 8 – How to hear the information?

The system is considered useful or very useful by 92% of the people questioned. The same amount of people does not wish to pay an additional price for use or for a certain period. Thus it is preferred to only introduce the system for a purchase price. The results are considered to be useful for the project. Therefore the results are used to design the interface as discussed already in section 2.2.

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4 Stakeholders Analysis

This chapter has as purpose to determine the stakeholders and their interests. The parties involved with the development and deployment of the intelligent navigation system are defined along with their needs. First these stakeholders themselves (section 4.1), and second their interests are described (section 4.2).

4.1 Stakeholders

The first research question unintentionally defined some stakeholders when describing the system lay-out. The suppliers of hardware and software inside the navigation system are the first stakeholders. The companies that manage GPS and traffic data and maps for the route system are suppliers of hardware and software outside the navigation system and are grouped and defined the second stakeholder. The third stakeholder is the user of the intelligent navigation system. The opinion of all users and drivers is expected to be combined in that of a drivers association. The fourth stakeholder is the public authority and the fifth the road safety association, which is concerned with safety for road users. The sixth and last stakeholder is the group of competitors; among them are TomTom, Garmin, and VDO Dayton.

1. Suppliers of hardware and software for the internal system components 2. Suppliers of hardware and software for the external system components 3. Drivers association

4. Public authority

5. Road safety association 6. Competitors

4.2 Stakeholder Interests

The stakeholders as described in section 4.1 all have something to do with the intelligent navigation system that is being developed. In this section the interests of these stakeholders are described. All interests and consequential actions are described below and shown in table 7.

Stakeholder Interest Actions

Internal hard- and software suppliers

 Sell new products

 Create market share

 Develop new technologies

 Develop new product

External hard- and software suppliers

 Sell data

 Create market share

 Develop new technologies

Drivers association  Comfortable driving

 Quality / price index

 Lobby for drivers’ interests

 Use & buy best product

Road operator  Get better network performance  Develop new technologies

 React to developments and

changes in mobility

Government  Get better network performance

 Get less environmental damage

 Better traffic safety

 Subsidize new technologies

 Subsidize new products

 Make regulations for products

 Initiate / finance research

 (Cooperate for wanted results)

Road safety association  Get less accidents / victims  Lobby at producer / government

Competitors  Maintain market share  Develop competitive products

Table 7 – Stakeholder interests and actions

Suppliers of hard- and software for the internal system components are mainly interested in selling (new) products and, by doing that, creating a (bigger) market share. The parts of the system that are

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directly implemented in the vehicle will be supplied by them. Whether these parts are already available will determine whether they can be bought directly or need to be developed first. This development can focus on new technologies, or just on new products.

Suppliers of hardware and software for the external system components are mainly interested in selling data, and creating a (bigger) market share too. This group of suppliers consists of the GPS satellites, map data and traffic information provider. The GPS satellites for example will face new competition from the Galileo system in the near future. To maintain their position as major supplier of GPS data, they’d probably like to be the GPS data supplier. The traffic information provider manages the traffic data that is used. The way this data is being collected determines the data provider as well.

Drivers associations exist mainly to stand up for the drivers’ interests. As an association, they know the interests of their members. They try to get these interests covered in the final product. In this case the final result they aim for is a product that will enhance a comfortable way of driving. Besides that the quality – price index is an important interest as well. The quality a user gets when spending a certain amount of money determines whether the product will be bought and used.

The road operator is the first public authority and among other things is aiming to maximize the capacity of its network. A problem that occurs at times of congestion at main roads is that capacity at regional roads is not maximally used. The road operator seeks for solutions for this problem by their regional traffic management operations. If traffic is moving not only on the main roads, but uses the regional capacity nearby as well, congestion is less likely to occur. The road operator will thus probably be interested in the intelligent navigation system.

The (regional, national and international) government, the second public authority, is interested in reliable traffic times and environmental matters. Congestion results in unreliable traffic times and causes higher emission by involved vehicles. The government is trying to find solutions for both the congestion and the environmental aspect. They are helped by more fluently spread traffic. This is less likely to result in congestion or high emissions. If it can be made clear that government objectives are helped to achieve by this system, it might be possible to be subsidized in some way.

The road safety association is mainly interested in minimizing traffic accidents and accompanying harmed people. If more traffic is going to use the regional road network, more accidents will likely occur because these roads are relatively unsafe (Rijkswaterstaat, 2007). The more reliable traffic time could result in less irritated drivers, which pay more attention to the road and are more relaxed. Competitors are interested in selling as many products as possible. Any new navigation system is not something they like to see at the competitor side. Two groups of competitors can be identified; the group of competitors that do not have a comparable system yet, and the group of competitors that have one already. The first is more triggered to develop such a system, because not doing that will result in less market share. The second one’s advantage is gone. The main competitor that can be identified is TomTom, which developed HD Traffic. This system is very much similar to the intelligent navigation system that is discussed in this report. It is very important to develop a strategy to introduce the new system as a competitive one. How this will be done is discussed more in detail in the deployment strategy (section 5.3).

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5 Competitor Assessment

This chapter discusses the stakeholder assessment for the competitor, in the person of TomTom. A market assessment is used to determine the market threats and opportunities for the system, in relation to TomTom (section 5.1). A deployment scenario is made and risks about the deployment of the system are analyzed using the RAID approach (section 5.2). And finally the deployment stragegy considering these market conditions and other risks is determined (section 5.3).

For both assessments, the ten assessment steps of the CONVERGE method (1998) are used. The application is the same for both assessments, namely the intelligent navigation system. A detailed description is given already in chapter 2. The assessment category is mentioned already above, a market assessment in the case of the competitor and an impact assessment in the case of the road operator.

5.1 Market Assessment

The competitors for the system that is being developed are of various kinds. The main competitors originate in the market for navigation systems. Other competitors are internet-based navigation suppliers. Also smart phones have more and more navigation options. As described in section 4.2, TomTom already developed a similar navigation system; High Definition (HD) Traffic. Complementary it is important to mention they are market leader in in-car navigation systems in several countries worldwide. To introduce the new system, it is important to know what the market threats and possibilities are. Therefore a market assessment plan is developed.

5.1.1 TomTom as a Stakeholder

In chapter 4 the competitors are assessed as a stakeholder. Their interests in relation to the new system and possible actions are defined. Table 8 gives an overview on this analysis.

Competitors  Maintain market share  Develop competitive products

Table 8 – Summary stakeholder analysis for competitors

5.1.2 Expected Impacts

The intelligent navigation system is expected to compete with the HD Traffic system that TomTom recently introduced. Also other competitors might be triggered to develop similar or more advanced systems or methodologies. The sole stakeholder that is definitely going to profit from this situation is the driver. Especially those that are willing to use these advanced navigation systems. Some impacts therefore can be expected:

 Directly derived increased competition for HD Traffic, because of introduction intelligent navigation (target group: TomTom)

 Indirectly derived increased competition for HD Traffic and intelligent navigation, because of market developments (target group: TomTom and developer of intelligent navigation itself)

 Lower price of smart navigation systems, because of competition (target group: driver)

 Lower profit of HD Traffic, because of lower market share and selling price (target group: TomTom)

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For this research these impacts are assessed further. First, the directly derived increased competition and its accompanying lower selling prices are assessed. Second, the indirectly derived increased competition and its accompanying market influences are assessed.

Indicators

For estimating the expected impacts of the introduction of the system the used indicators are:

 The number of sold HD Traffic and Intelligent Navigation systems. Analysis of these numbers gives an indication of user acceptance of the system. Comparing these numbers with those for Intelligent Navigation indicates the market share of both systems.

 The selling price of HD Traffic and Intelligent Navigation systems. Analysis of the prices gives an indication of the willingness to pay. The selling prices of both systems indicate the market positions.

 Appraisal of HD Traffic and Intelligent Navigation by consumers’ association. This would indicate the user acceptance of various aspects of system performance; from cost-performance ratios to attractiveness of the interface.

 Investment in marketing by TomTom. The amount of money TomTom is investing in marketing for their HD Traffic navigation system indicates the importance they ascribe to this product. Comparing the invested money at the moment with the invested money after the introduction of Intelligent Navigation indicates an impact of this introduction.

Reference Case

The reference case is the deployment strategy TomTom uses for their HD Traffic navigation system. It is however not possible yet to retrieve any data on the strategy TomTom is using.

Data Collection

To collect the number of sold navigation systems by TomTom is very difficult. The annual report most likely does not contain these exact numbers. Collecting data on the selling price of both systems is comparable easy. The selling price for TomTom’s HD Traffic systems is € 399. The selling price for Intelligent Navigation will be € 299.

The appraisal of both systems by consumers’ associations is something that is not necessarily available. Consumers’ associations cannot be forced to make such appraisals. But navigation systems are very popular and TomTom is a growing company. Therefore it is likely that consumers would like some appraisal when deciding which product to buy.

What counts for the data on number of sold products should count for the investments in marketing by TomTom as well. It is however not necessarily possible to single out the part that is spend on the HD Traffic systems.

Conditions of Measurements

The measurements should be executed under certain conditions to be used in this assessment. It is important that data is retrieved from annual reports as much as possible, because these have been approved by accountants. The data should furthermore be comparable (in terms of currency and period) for both products and companies.

Statistical Considerations

The first consideration is that it is hard to retrieve data about the reference case as mentioned before. Another consideration is that data is provided for both products and companies as mentioned in the previous subsection. A statistical important consideration is that data is available for certain periods, preferably for more than one year. This makes it possible to make assumptions

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on market developments. The length of the period determines the quality of the assessment results. This assessment is focussed on the period after introduction. But to say something about the period before introduction, the data about TomTom alone could be used.

Measurement Plan

The aspects discussed in the previous subsections of this assessment form the most important aspects of the measurement plan. The assessment has to be made like proposed to be able to draw usable conclusions. The results of this assessment are important indicators for the deployment strategy for Intelligent Navigation.

Integrity of Measurement

The integrity of the data is covered by their origin. Since both companies (probably) have responsibilities against shareholders, they have to provide integer data. Therefore there are no problems expected on behalf of the integrity of the information.

5.2 Risk Analysis

A risk analysis for the deployment of the intelligent navigation system has been made. This resulted in twenty threats, of which five are considered the most important ones. The five highest rated threats have been mitigated as risks. These are presented in tables 9 to 12. The complete risks analysis is given in appendix C. The mitigation strategy of the risks is used to formulate recommendations. This is the final step and is not presented in this section, but in section 5.3 (Deployment Strategy).

Red risk Bad publicity  decrease in sales

Consumers that are disappointed or caused damage by the system can harm the company by accusing them. Consumer organizations can bring out negative reviews of the product. The consequence of this threat is that sales will decrease caused by negative image developments.

The probability of occurrence is high because it happened to TomTom when they introduced their HD Traffic system. A new company introducing a similar product on the market will draw attention as well. Any minor mistake will be enlarged probably. The level of impact is high as well because image is very important for a company putting a system as this one on the market. Any bad publicity therefore is very unlikely.

Mitigation actions By whom Control/avoidance

Test the system extensively Development division Avoidance

Publicity campaigns Marketing division Control

Table 9 – Risk 1: Bad publicity

Orange risk Competitors maintain too big market share  not enough profit

TomTom already has a similar product on the market and has the biggest market share at the moment. The goal is to decrease their market share by introducing a new product with which own market share is gained. The threat is that this will not happen and that TomTom maintains a too big market share. The consequence of this threat is that fewer products are sold and it becomes a risk that TomTom rules the company out or takes it over.

The probability of occurrence is high because it is hard to compete with TomTom. They have competition from other companies, but deal with this intelligently. They plan to take over TeleAtlas for example to implement in their operations. This way they maintain their market share at a very high level. The level of impact is medium because doing business while competing with TomTom is expected to be hard. But when TomTom gives attention to the introduction of intelligent navigation, this is a signal that they expect competition from it.

Set price below HD Traffic Board of directors Avoidance

Product appraisal Consumer organization Control

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Intelligent Transport Systems 2, University of Twente | Group 4 – K. Kant & S. Beumer 21 Orange risk No possibilities for cooperation with phone company  no dynamic traffic data

The traffic data should be collected using data from phone companies. If however, mobile phone companies are not willing to cooperate in the project, the use of traffic data from mobile phones will not be possible. The consequence of this threat is that traffic data has to be collected traditionally by other means. These means of data collection are inferior as

concluded in section 2.2. In the Netherlands this is only done for major roads, and outside the Netherlands even this information is hard to retrieve.

The probability of occurrence is medium because a mobile phone company has to be willing to cooperate with a navigation system supplier that is just new on the market. This phone company has got to have many customers as well, for this gives the best result. The level of impact is high because when no mobile phone company is willing to cooperate, the system has fewer possibilities for real dynamic exist. The service will thus be less attractive.

Contract companies like KPN Board of directors Avoidance

Search for other possibilities for dynamic traffic data

Development division Avoidance

Table 11 – Risk 3: No possibilities for cooperation with phone company

Orange risk System is too expensive  no development / no sales

If the development of the system is too expensive, a higher selling price is needed to cover all the costs. A selling price that is too high, without the need to cover high development cost is part of this threat as well. The consequence of this threat is that the system will not be easily sold. If sales stay behind the net income for the company will be negative. Eventually the product will not be sold anymore.

The probability of occurrence is medium because however the competition forces us to ask a lower price, the

development costs have to be paid for. It is hard to say what people would be willing to pay for the system. The level of impact is high because if the consumer does not buy the system, it is not used.

Set price below HD Traffic Board of directors Avoidance

Table 12 – Risk 4: System is too expensive

5.3 Deployment Strategy

The deployment scenario that was analyzed in the risk analysis is used to define a deployment strategy. The risk analysis, and especially the mitigated ones, is addressed to the scenario. This way the deployment strategy is more likely to be achievable. The strategy is built up of four phases; the development, market introduction, one year objectives and future plans.

5.3.1 Phase 1 – Development

The intelligent navigation system is focused on the improvement of efficiency of the transport network as well as on disseminating real-time information to end-user. To improve efficiency of the transport network, real-time information has to be disseminated to the end-user. The development phase therefore has to focus on these functional elements the system has to contain. The system has to be tested in order to prevent any errors in the second phase. Where an important step can be made in the competition with TomTom is by making the system ready for Galileo already. Galileo is not available yet, but will be in the near future. When the system is already equipped properly, this will be an advantage.

In phase 1 it is furthermore important to build up a partnership with a big mobile phone company, just like TomTom has done with Vodafone. The preferred provider for the Dutch market is KPN. For foreign markets comparable companies should be selected as O2 in the United Kingdom and T-Mobile in Germany. The number of customers the provider has is very important. A higher number of customers provides more traffic data and also gives more reliable results.

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5.3.2 Phase 2 – Market Introduction

Intelligent navigation will initially be introduced on the Dutch market, with expansion to the complete Benelux within three months. The initial price will be set at € 299, which is € 100 less than HD Traffic. This way an important step to compete with TomTom will be made. It is expected that this price will be sufficient to cover the costs.

During the introduction period it is important to follow the market development very closely. If demand for the product is low, marketing has to work harder in promoting the product. If demand is high, production has to ensure the product stays available in shops. Any errors that occur in this phase, despite testing in phase 1, have to be identified quickly. The errors have to be fixed. Also the marketing division has to work hard to prevent a negative image.

5.3.3 Phase 3 – Gaining Market Share

In this period al errors identified in phase 2 have to be eliminated. This way the product can be assessed positively by consumer organizations. This will result in higher sales and increasing market share. It is also important to eliminate these errors before going abroad.

After an introduction period of three months it is time to take the product abroad. The final market for Intelligent Navigation is the European market. The main objective in this period is however not primarily to globalize the product. It is just used as a mean to gain market share in comparison with TomTom. Within one year after introduction a market share of 10% is aimed at.

5.3.4 Phase 4 – Maintaining Market Share

When the aimed 10% market share in one year has been reached, business can continue properly. The market share mentioned only counts for the Dutch market. The other markets have to follow accordingly. Finally, five year after implementation a market share of 25% has to be reached. This way, business can be continued and a takeover is less likely to occur.

It is assumed that this system will result in a product line that will evolve in the upcoming years. Therefore a share of the profit that is made should be put in development programs. This is an important aspect when competing with TomTom.

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6 Road operator assessment

This chapter discusses the stakeholder assessment for the road operator. An impact assessment is used to determine the impacts of the ITS system, in relation to the road operator (section 6.1). To determine the impact of the system, choice modelling is used (section 6.2). And finally some considerations about traffic modelling are mentioned (section 6.3).

6.1 Impact Assessment

Public authorities, in the form of the responsible institutes for mobility, have many interests in new developments on the mobility market. The road operator (Rijkswaterstaat in the Netherlands) is the institute that manages the road network and traffic. It monitors the network performance and provides users with information like regulations, traffic conditions and external conditions (e.g. weather). New systems may have impact on the way drivers behave on the road and therefore some effects may be expected on traffic and thus the working of the road operator. Therefore an impact assessment is made for the road operator (and government as responsible institution for mobility). First the road operator as stakeholder is analyzed (section 6.1.1) and secondly the impacts are analyzed using the Converge method. One impact (changes in route choice) is research even further (paragraph 6.2). A choice model is made for choosing between two routes, based on a stated preference questionnaire.

6.1.1 Road Operator as Stakeholder

The public authorities are assessed as an important stakeholder. Especially the road operator and the government have, as public authorities, interest in a new navigation system. Table 13 gives an overview on the results of de stakeholder analysis for these stakeholders.

Road operator  Get better network performance  Develop new technologies

 React to developments and changes in mobility

Government  Get better network performance

 Get less environmental damage

 Better traffic safety

 Subsidize new technologies

 Subsidize new products

 Make regulations for new products

 Initiate and finance research on effects

 (Cooperate to have wanted results)

Table 13 – Summary stakeholder analysis for road operator and government

6.1.2 Impacts

The Intelligent Navigation system is expected to influence the route choices of drivers, especially in unexpected situations. Because the system is able to inform (a part of) the drivers about the precise current situation on the major part of the road network some impacts are expected:

 Less delay for the users of the system and a more reliable prediction of the travel time and time of arrival.

 A part of the drivers is redirected around bottlenecks resulting in a different trip-pattern. This has several impacts:

o Less traffic supply at bottleneck location because a part of the traffic is instantly redirected. This is expected to reduce the problems at the bottleneck location

o The alternative routes which the system proposes may differ from the routes a road operator has in mind

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o More traffic volume at alternative routes. Many of these routes are expected to be of the secondary (underlying) network. This may encourage route choice behaviour that is now known as rat run. This may cause unexpected delays at these alternative routes and decrease in safety en environmental properties

 The departure time choice may be influenced by the new system as improved information is provided. This is expected to result in a more spreading of the peak hours (when the use and impact are high enough)

 The need for infrastructure based information systems decreases when many users have in car information systems. The possibilities for the road operator and traffic manager to manage traffic become limited. Possibly new methods must be found to maintain the possibilities for traffic managing.

For this research one impact is assessed further; the expected change in route choice by drivers. It is expected that drivers take a route on secondary roads more often because of the increase in provided information.

Indicators

The first question is which indicator can be used to assess the impact of changes in route choice behaviour and the increased use of regional roads. This in turn may have effects on safety, environment and liveability around these alternative routes. Indicators for the level of use of the secondary road as an alternative route, are mainly the intensities on these roads, and especially changes in intensities. The difference in intensities is not a good indicator on its own, because many other factors could influence this indicator. The requirement that an indicator must be able to reflect clearly the related performance or impact is not necessarily met with this indicator. External effects must therefore be excluded. This must be kept in mind when selecting a data collection method.

Reference Case

The reference case is the current situation where no navigation systems exist which are able to take traffic conditions into account for route choice on this scale.

Data Collection

For the assessment of the impact of traffic change to secondary roads, two main methods are available. The first is monitoring intensities at the road in real life for example using induction loops in the road. A disadvantage is that the results are location specific and may be influenced on many other factors than the use of this new system. A better solution is to obtain the data from a route choice model. This way the results on intensities can be obtained by modelling the change in route choice and driver behaviour. A disadvantage of this method may be that the model is not good (for various types of reasons) and the results may be false. A base for modelling the effects is research on how users respond to the system and how they perform the route choice when using the system. With a stated preference questionnaire a choice modelling research can be executed.

Conditions of Measurements

The data must have several properties to be useful for analysis. This results in some constraints for the measurement methods. When a traffic simulation model is used for impact assessment the guarantee must be given that the results are comparable and useful to real world situations. Calibration and validation of the simulation model and measurements is thus very important. Comparisons of the model data with real world measurements give probably the best results. When only field measurements are used it is expected that many uncontrolled distortions exist in the data. This is the reason that a preference lies by the use of a simulation model. Input for the traffic model

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is knowledge about how drivers respond to the availability of the intelligent navigation system. The choice model uses stated preference choices as an input. The most important condition is that the investigated attributes are asked clearly to the respondent.

Statistical Considerations

Because a simulation model is based on a certain input, the errors in this input will work through in the results. Statistical (error) analysis are then needed to give insight in this. Further it is better when multiple traffic cases are modelled, because it gives more confidence in the fact if the results can be used in real world situations. The same can be said for the choice modelling part. Research on which attributes are needed and knowledge about the sample conditions are important.

Measurement Plan

For reliable results the set up of the model is very important. The simulated conditions must be chosen wisely and for calibration and validation it is important that the conditions in the simulation correspond to some real life cases. A time plan is not very important because this is on less influence on the results when using a simulation. The input for the choice modelling is best measured using a stated preference questionnaire.

Conclusion assessment plan

The impact on use of secondary roads can be measured using a traffic model with a choice model as input. The choice model is made using discrete choice modelling techniques with stated preference questions as input. The next section will discuss the choice model that is made for this impact assessment. Paragraph 6.3 discusses the method how the results of the choice model can be used in a traffic simulation.

6.2 Choice modelling

The impact assessment showed that there are several possible impacts to be expected when a system like Intelligent Navigation is deployed. To quantify one of these impacts, an attempt is made to model the behaviour of users using a discrete choice model in Biogeme1. This chapter discusses the set up of the model, the input and analyzes the results. Main target for the modelling is to:

With this information can, in theory, be modelled what the effects on traffic will be when the system is used by a part of the drivers.

6.2.1 Setup

The choice is being made to confront a person with a choice situation in which that person must make a choice between two routes. The first option is the standard route which is originally proposed by the navigation system, and the second option is an alternative route which is faster because a delay occurs on the standard route. There are many attributes expected to be of influence on this choice, but it is not possible to research all possible attributes. The main reason for this is the amount of input that is needed to have significant results for all attributes. Therefore a choice is

1

Biogeme (Bierlaire's Optimization Toolbox for GEV Model Estimation) is an object-oriented software package designed for the maximum likelihood estimation of Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) models. (Biogeme, 2008)

determine which attributes influence the route choice drivers will make when they are confronted with an alternative route by the navigation system, using discrete choice modelling

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made to use only four attributes. The attributes which are expected to be of significant importance are:

 x1: Trip length

 x2: Delay of the standard route

 x3: Extra length (distance and time) of the alternative route

 x4: Use of secondary roads

Other attributes that may be of importance are the purpose of the trip, the need to be on time, the reliability of the information, familiarity with the neighbourhood, the cause of the delay, etc. The choice for the chosen attributes is based on the expected significance and the possibilities for getting useful input. The attribute ‘trip length’ is used to research the effect of different trip lengths on choice making. The trip length can be described in terms of distance or travel time. There is not an expectation for the influence of this attribute on the choice making. The attribute ‘delay standard route’ describes the influence of the amount of delay on the standard route. It is expected that an increase in delay on the standard route results in an increase in the choice to use an alternative route. Because different trip lengths are used, the delay is not an absolute value but a percentage of the original travel time (see ‘trip length’).

The use of an alternative route means in most cases a longer route (in terms of distance). This may also influence the choice making as time saving decreases with an increase in length and the costs may also increase (more fuel consumption). The attribute ‘extra length of the alternative route’ is modelled to add a relative distance to the distance of standard route. It is expected that an increase in length of the alternative route, the willingness to take the alternative route is decreased. Finally it is analyzed whether the use of secondary roads in the alternative route matters for drivers. It is expected that drivers are less likely to chose for an alternative route when it uses small, regional roads in an area the driver is not familiar to. When the alternative route uses highways or other primary roads it is expected that the user will choose for this alternative more.

Utility Functions

Discrete choice modelling is done using utility functions. These functions describe the relation between the attributes and the choices that are made. With the four described attributes the utility function for the standard route (SR) and alternative route (AR) will look like:

 𝑆𝑅 = 𝐴𝑆𝐶1 + 𝛽₁∙ 𝑥₁+ 𝛽₂∙ 𝑥₂ (1)

 𝐴𝑅 = 𝐴𝑆𝐶2 + 𝛽₁∙ 𝑥₁+ + 𝛽₃∙ 𝑥₃+ 𝛽₄∙ 𝑥₄ (2)

With the analysis of observations, the βx’s can be estimated and a prediction can be made about choice behaviour. The observations are made in controlled conditions, a stated preference questionnaire, to assure the reliability of the observations. To limit the complexity of the choice modelling only two or three values per attribute are used. Table 14 shows the attributes, their values and the coding for the utility function in Biogeme.

Attribute Value 1 (description) Value 2 (description) Value 3 (discription)

x1: Trip length 0 (20km, 15min) 1 (60km, 40min)

x2: Delay standard route -1 (+5min) 0 (+15min) 1 (+30min)

x3: Extra length alternative route -1 (2km, 2min) 0 (5km, 5min) 1 (15km, 15min)

x4: Use of secondary roads 0 (NO) 1 (YES)

Intelligent Navigation

Intelligent Transport Systems 2, University of Twente