SIMON assisted mobility for older and impaired users

The Regional Transport Consortium in Madrid (Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid - CRTM) and the City Councils of Parma, Lisbon and Madrid, will test the project SIMON under the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme- 2007-2013 (CIP).

The project aims to develop solutions in the field of both private and public transport in order to facilitate the independent living and societal participation of the elderly and people with impaired mobility. The project, which is mainly focused on the information technology sector, plans to deploy a contactless European Disability Card that should rule out fraud, existing in the current paper model. The new card will allow people with disabilities to access both regulated parking areas and public transport.

A second line of work focuses on the development of mobile applications and navigation solutions to design accessible routes, combining public with private transport and including parking spaces for disabled people as well as metro stations with elevators. The SIMON program covers a term of 36 months and close to € 4 million budget.

Four Platforms
The project involves the integration of multiple databases and the creation of four service platforms:

navigation and mobility assistance (Simon Answers) ;
access-right management for parking areas and public transport (Simon Says) ;
booking of reserved parking spots and information on the status of the parking spaces (Simon Books) ;
management of urban barriers – i.e. bollards – to limit access to certain areas of the city whilst granting access to users with reduced mobility (Simon Leads).

Once the development of these four platforms will be completed, SIMON will be piloted in Lisbon, Parma and Madrid, where over 2,000 people with reduced mobility will participate in the test.

Partners involved in the project are:

CRTM – Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid (Spain) ;
ETRA Investigación y Desarrollo, S.A. (Spain) ;
IBV – Institute of Biomechanics of Valencia (Spain) ;
Madrid City Council (Spain) ;
Locoslab GmbH (Germany) ;
Infomobility SpA (Italy) ;
EMEL – Empresa Pública Municipal de Mobilidade e Estacionamento de Lisboa (Portugal) ;
(Ontology Engineering Group) Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain).

The role of the CRTM in this project will be to:

Define the technical criteria for the multimodal navigator to cope with the Accessibility for All principles, in the development of both the interface and the navigation solutions ;
Populate the Open Data hubs with specific information related to public transport, to address the requirements and needs of people with reduced mobility and special needs ;
Design the types, properties and interrelationships (ontologies) that are going to deal with the usage of the public transport entities both in a static and real time situation ;
Establish the adequate framework and data licensing for the usage of the hubs of public transport data in the context of an Open Architecture ;
Validate the whole project taking advice from the principal associations of persons with reduced mobility: CERMI, ONCE and FAMMA ;
Carry out dissemination and awareness campaigns ;
Be in charge of the Pilot execution in the City of Madrid.

For more information: Javier Chamorro Mata, Área de Accesibilidad