THE DANUBE REGION JOURNEY PLANNER IS FINALISED!

The Danube Region Journey Planner (DRJP) is finalised and ready to be used by travellers. The application allows users to plan their journeys in the Danube region according to their personal needs.

The DRJP provides information about different transportation modes, local transport services and Points Of Interest (POI).

The journey planner finds the route between two locations for a given time, while the filters allow to specify route search criteria, such as public transportation mode, walking distance or walking speed. After selecting a start and end point, the DRJP presents an overview of the journey with several alternatives depending on the chosen transportation mode and the departure time.

The Danube Region Journey Planner (DRJP) is connected to a web service via OpenAPI interface, which allows sending back combined routing result to the linked local systems. The common OpenAPI interface is integrated into the local journey planners in order to exploit the full functionality of the DRJP.

We hope you enjoy planning your trip with the DRJP!

FIND OUT HOW IT WORKS!

LINKING DANUBE FINAL CONFERENCE, 26th of June, Bucharest – SAVE THE DATE!

The event is planned to be held in Bucharest, Romania on 26th of June 2019 in the context of the 8th EUSDR Annual Forum on 27-28 June also in Bucharest.

During the Final Conference, LinkingDanube partners will present and discuss the main outputs of the project. The main goals of the event are to:

• Present the operational and practical part of the Distributed Journey Planning for the Danube Region (DRJP)
• Analyse the impact and development / implementation of the DRJP at regional / European level

The DJRP demonstrates the feasibility and functionality of the LinkingDanube concept, including both integrating rural public transport services into the information flow of national / regional travel planning and linking services for the provision of cross-border services in the Danube Region.

The LinkingDanube concept and DRJP will be presented to participants where they will have the opportunity to test the functionality of the journey planner at the project presentation stand.

An official agenda and more information on the event will follow on our website.

FIRST LOCAL LEARNING AND DISSEMINATION WORKSHOP HELD IN SLOVAKIA

On 21st February 2019, a local learning and dissemination workshop regarding the LinkingDanube project was held by the Railway Company Slovakia in Bratislava. The main purpose of the workshop was to teach and disseminate information about the LinkingDanube project and its outputs to relevant national stakeholders and institutions and, in return, receive valuable feedback, which could help to improve the user experience and overall functioning of the LinkingDanube project outputs.

The workshop was attended by 11 participants from various institutions out of 15 that originally confirmed their attendance, which can be considered a pretty good turnout, proving that the theme of the project sparks interest among relevant stakeholders. Attending the workshop were representatives of:

• Ministry of Transport and Construction of the Slovak Republic;
• Bratislava Self-Governing Region;
• Bratislava Integrated Transport (Bratislavská integrovaná doprava, a.s.);
• Trnava Self-Governing Region;
• and one expert from a private company, specializing in projects in the field of transport and transport infrastructure.

The workshop consisted of a presentation of the main features, technicalities and goals of the LinkingDanube project. The presentation included an interactive part, whereby all of the participants were asked to plan a journey, traveling solely by means of public transport, from Timisoara (RO) to Prague (CZ) and Vienna (AT). Most of the participants immediately thought of and suggested using Google Maps application to find the public transport connection, but were surprised, when the Google Maps planner did not offer sufficient results. This example formed the basis for the explanation of the technical infrastructure of the Linking Danube Journey Planner, which differs dramatically from the technical solution adopted by the most commonly used Google Maps planner.

During the presentation, participants were shown the current state of the LinkingDanube Journey Planner and were also informed about the Danube Scout application, which provides comprehensive information about participating countries. An IT expert, in charge of the technical implementation of the LinkingDanube project on the side of the Railway Company Slovakia, then provided the workshop participants with further details about the technicalities and technical solution used to make the LinkingDanube Journey Planner function and more importantly enumerated the benefits of such a technical solution, e.g. a relatively easy access  and maintenance for stakeholders interested to join the system and provide their data in the future.

The last part of the workshop consisted of a group discussion, during which the participating stakeholders were asked to provide their opinions about the project and ask questions. It can be said that the discussion was very lively, whereby almost all participants asked questions, either about the technical nature of the LinkingDanube Journey Planner or about the future of the project itself and its possible exploitability by end-users (customers).

SECOND LOCAL LEARNING AND DISSEMINATION WORKSHOP HELD IN HUNGARY 

The local workshop of LinkingDanube project in Budapest was held on the 22nd of February 2019. First the concept was presented including a short summary of journey planning, related projects and top features of various journey planners. Then the basic idea of the project was explained, followed by the elements and results and opportunities.

Based on these ideas we continued discussing organizational problems, where additionally the business models and long term aims of transport operators were in focus. It seems that the biggest burden of linking multimodal transport services will be not technology related issues, but the willingness of sharing data of the transport operators.

IMPROVED TRAVEL INFORMATION FOR THE DANUBE REGION – “DANUBESCOUT PILOT"

The DanubeScout application is finalised and ready to use! DanubeScout.eu is a website (information service) that provides a comprehensive overview on travel information services in the Danube Region. Regional and local services are displayed for specific target groups like cross-border commuters and tourists. Also the Danube Region Journey Planner (DRJP) will be accessible over the DanubeScout.

The aim of the service is to bring a tool for travellers and especially tourists who are going to visit the neighbouring regions in the Danube Region. DanubeScout helps them to travel easier and more comfortable by public transport in the Danube Region. The site contains tourist information, public transport maps, ticket prices and recommendations for easy and cheap connections between cities and regions.

For more information about DanubeScout click here.

LINKING DANUBE PRESENTED AT THE DANUBE REGION TRANSPORT DAYS(4TH- 5TH December 2018) 

LinkingDanube was present at the 4th International stakeholder conference entitled “The Danube Region Transport Days 2018” held on 4 and 5 December 2018 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The event brought together transport community to exchange and share their experiences, results and ideas on all aspects of transport in the Danube macro-region. Moreover the aim was to strengthen cooperation between transport stakeholders in the Danube macro-region in order to jointly address the challenges associated with implementation of existing transport policy activities.

The conference was organised by Priority area 1b "To improve mobility and multimodality − rail, road and air links" with support of EIRE- EuroRAP and UNECE.

In section Activities and On-going Projects Relevant to the Danube Region, projects TRANSGREEN, CHESTNUT, CityWalk, eGUTS, LinkingDanube, Transdanube.Pearls and RADAR  presented their work and outputs. Besides RRA LUR, there was also a representative of one of project ASP’s - Knowledge HUB Moldova who expressed high interest in LinkingDanube project and in Danube region journey planner.

UPCOMING LOCAL LEARNING AND DISSEMINATION WORKSHOPS 

The local learning and dissemination workshop in Romania is organised by the University "POLITEHNICA" Timisoara and will take place on the first half of March 2019 in the PUT building in Timisoara. The main goals of the workshop are to present the Linking Danube project background, technical presentation on Open API, and the main output Danube Region Journey Planner.  Local transport operators, services providers and researchers are invited to participate to discuss the future development and issues related to Danube Region Journey Planner. The participants will have the opportunity to test the functionality of the journey planner.

The local learning and dissemination workshop in the Czech Republic is organised by KORDIS and will take place on 21 March 2019 in the Hotel Voroněž in Brno. The main goals of the workshop are to present the Linking Danube project background, the Danube Region Journey Planner as well as the DanubeScout.eu web page. At the place there will be possible to test the functionality of both DRJP and Danube Scout on a special demo kit. Participants will fill-in the questionnaire on its functionalities and will share their opinions on crossborder public transport and journey planners. The meeting will be visited by relevant representatives of public transport organizers from all Czech and Moravian regions laying in Danube basin (South Bohemian Region, Vysočina Region, South Moravian Region) and by Lower Austria and Bratislava Region.

The local learning and dissemination workshops in Austria is organised by AustriaTech and will take place in April 2019. The main goal will be introducing and presenting the LinkingDanube project and its outputs to relevant national stakeholders.

One of the last Local Learning and Dissemination Workshops will be organised in Slovenia in May 2019. The main goal of workshop will be to present the Linking Danube project, their outputs and results. All main stakeholders from the field of transport will be invited and will have the opportunity to discus and test Danube region journey planner.