Jose Guzman, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue,
Wollongong, NSW 2500, Australia.
Phone +61 42 21 4951 Fax: +61 42 21 4373
Jose Guzman
Danny Rubano, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue,
Wollongong, NSW 2500, Australia.
Phone +61 42 76 4043 Fax: +61 42 21 4373
Danny Rubano
Community Services, Illawarra, University of Wollongong, Australia, Public Transport, Interactive, Integrated, Human Machine Interface Developments
This article describes an integrated community based interactive system. The development of this system was facilitated by converging all regional bus and train timetables, together with information regarding taxi, ambulance and other community based modes of transport. This information will be accessable from the World Wide Web and offers a range of comprehensive services. The Illawarra region, begining fifty kilometres south of Sydney, is well suited for adapting a prototypical approach. An estimated 232,000 Illawarra residents alone could potentially be exposed to this Extranet. Further, there is sufficient commmunity need and transport complexity within the geographic domain. This is because the Illawarra region is considered to be an ageing population requiring an adaptive system, in which minimal technological prowess is necessary.
The Illawarra region spans a coastal corridor beginning fifty kilometres south of Sydney, from Helensburgh in the north, to Kiama some eighty kilometres further south. Population centres within the Illawarra supported by this project include Wollongong with 175,000 inhabitants, Shellharbour 46,000 inhabitants and Kiama 16,000 inhabitants. Each have seperate local government instrumentalities and associated services. The combined population is general considered to be ageing. The area is a major tourist and industrial centre.
Public transport in the region is provided by four major and several other minor bus operators, all privately owned and independantely managed. The State Rail Authority provides all train services. Each bus operator is assigned a sector, not conforming to municipal boundries of the region within which they operate. However, there are limited cross sector services available to commuters. All public transport operators manage their own timetabling processes and individually publish seperate timetable information. To traverse the region it is necessary to take a number of services that may, or may not, interconnect in terms of timetabling or "pick up - set down" locations.
Jose Guzman, Danny Rubano © 1997. The authors assign to University of Wollongong and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grants a non-exclusive licence to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers, and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the authors.
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