This article presents the iTransIT framework for building context-aware pervasive services in large-scale ambient environments. The iTransIT framework provides an architecture for conceptually integrating the independent systems underlying an ambient environment and a data model for capturing the contextual information generated by these systems. The data model is based on a hybrid approach to ...

This paper first studies the definition and connotation of transportation efficiency. From the viewpoint of different groups participating in urban transportation systems, different system functions and targets required by each group are analyzed. Then the corresponding system targets and evaluation rules required by the administrator are mainly studied. Four primary aspects which have great im...

The economic, social and environmental benefits generated by the use of urban public transportation infrastructure constitute a complex dynamic urban public transportation infrastructure utilization benefit system. This paper evaluates the coupling coordination among these three benefits taking four Chinese autonomous municipalities as an example. These four cities have large-scale urban public...

This chapter is an introduction to the economics of the connection between urban transportation and land use. The nature of the transportation system strongly influences the patterns of land use in an urban area. Indeed, the long-run histories of urban areas sometimes are identified with the dominant mode of transportation of the time; the age of rail, the age of the automobile, and so on. Supp...

This article discusses the issue of priorities in development in urban centers of developing countries. Urbanization is advancing rapidly in the developing world. There are needs for adequate infrastructure, environmental protection, and fiscal reform. Development can result in a reduction in poverty, if properly conducted. By the turn of the century, 8 of the world's 10 megacities will be ...

The development of SOA (service oriented architecture) applications is a paradigm to consider for the integration of services which usually requires the incorporation of distributed artificial intelligence technologies or multi agent systems (MAS) to achieve their objectives. This is the case of transportation field, where the improvement of urban data networks and embedded systems allow the im...

Cities are drivers of economic development, providing infrastructure to support countless activities and services. Today, the world’s 750 biggest cities account for more than 57% of the global GDP and this number is expected to increase to 61% by 2030. More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, or urban areas, and this share will continue to growth. Rapid urban growth has posed b...

In these last few years we observed a tremendous raise in the field of personal communication and locationcontext-based services. Unfortunately, in regard to these kind of services, standard connectivity, such as 3G, is limited by scalability issues and its strictly pull-based service model. As an alternate solution, Delay-Tolerant Networks (DTN) have already been proposed as a way to obtain a ...