Skip to main content

Launch of the Assistant project

The European Assistant (Aiding SuStainable Independent Senior TrAvellers to Navigate in Towns) project which will develop an ICT application to help older people to make unfamiliar trips on public transport has been launched. The three year project will develop an application for the home PC and smartphone that will be designed to help older travellers plan their public transport journeys and then receive guidance during their journey. This guidance will help them to find the bus that they need, warn them w
July 24, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
RSSThe European Assistant (Aiding SuStainable Independent Senior TrAvellers to Navigate in Towns) project which will develop an ICT application to help older people to make unfamiliar trips on public transport has been launched. The three year project will develop an application for the home PC and smartphone that will be designed to help older travellers plan their public transport journeys and then receive guidance during their journey. This guidance will help them to find the bus that they need, warn them when to get off the bus, when and where to change to another route, and will also provide assistance if something goes wrong.

The application will be designed to help users who are unfamiliar with the local public transport system either because they are visiting somewhere that they do not know well, or because they are beginning to use public transport again after losing the ability to drive. It will also offer help with the difficult last mile of a journey from the point at which you get off public transport to your final destination.

The project involves eight partners from five countries with an overall cost of €2.7 million (US$3.27 million). It is a project that is supported by the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) Joint Programme, which is funded by the 1690 European Commission and the National Contact Points for the AAL programme in each partner’s country. The Assistant application is expected to come to market by 2017.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Bus service data, better journey planning, better information
    January 30, 2012
    Chris Gibbard and Paul Drummond of Transport Direct on developments in Great Britain in the electronic transfer of bus service data. Great Britain has a dynamic bus market which permits a bus operator to initiate or alter commercial routes by giving a minimum of eight weeks' notice to a registrar (the Traffic Commissioner). A Local Transport Authority (LTA) neither specifies nor determines such services. In addition to commercial bus routes, an LTA will tender and contract for the operation of those additio
  • Transit in a time of protest
    July 13, 2020
    Street demonstrations at times create tricky balancing acts for public transportation providers - and the recent Black Lives Matter protests have also put a spotlight on the deeper problem of ‘infrastructural racism’…
  • Auckland reduces airport journey times
    April 16, 2018
    Getting from the centre of Auckland to the city’s airport used to be fraught with unwanted stress for passengers – but a new system combining radar, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is smoothing things over. Andrew Stone investigates. Struggling to cope with steady growth in passenger numbers and the costly traffic congestion which that can entail, New Zealand’s Auckland International Airport has deployed an innovative system that is smoothing traffic and passenger flows. The same system is also offering new, data-led
  • Speed cameras switched back on in Avon and Somerset
    February 24, 2015
    Speed cameras across Avon and Somerset in the UK are beginning to be switched back on for the first time since 2011, marking the beginning of a road safety project that will see a total of 29 static cameras become operational again. They were switched off when Government funding was withdrawn for the joint local authority and police Safety Camera Partnership. The cameras will be switched back on in a phased programme, exact dates yet to be confirmed, over the coming weeks and months. Revenue raised from the