The OurTravel Project

The OurTravel project explores the use of social networking and the notion of 'travel communities' within the context of personal travel and evaluates its impact on:

  •    user travel patterns
  •    efficiency of the UK's transport infrastructure
  •    environmental factors.

OurTravel leverages the widespread uptake of social networking and combined with advances in mobile and Web 2.0 technologies generates, processes and disseminates travel information within the context of physical and virtual travel communities. Through the delivery of real-time, context-sensitive, user-generated travel information travel communities can benefit from more reliable, responsive, trustworthy travel information. In particular, with greater awareness and understanding of the transport links in their current travel context, users can make better informed decisions about how and when to travel.

Key Challenges

  •    Provide a compelling user experience that both enables users to generate and view travel information that is relevant to their current journeys.
  •    Provisioning travellers with multi-modal, context-senstive, real-time travel information
  •    Support travellers in a variety of travel scenarios (in-vehicle, public transport, pre-travel planning)
  •    Integrate existing travel information systems within the context of OurTravel
  •    Understand mechanisms that promote trust of information & guarantees social capital for users
  •    Ensure security & privacy of information and users is not compromised