Integrating web services and agent technology with DIGIGEO agent

Abstract

The advent of Internet has brought down geographical distances but proportionally increased the digital geographical distances with masses of data and information that demands more than a mind to comprehend. Every digital megabyte is a mile of physical distance. Getting the wrong information is like taking a wrong turn. It wastes time, energy, productivity and money. This growth has led to the demanding needs of effectively using Digital Geography. Intelligent agents can play a role in ensuring this doesn't happen. They are pieces of software focused on organizing and getting the best out of our digital geography. They will become extensions of our will, aiding in the fulfillment of our needs and wants. They will venture into the digital wilderness and bring back to us the list of options we demand. This paper focuses on developing an intelligent agent DIGIGEO that have been applied to tourism industry, especially in the Indian Railways and discusses on how it deals with the limitation of handling time delay of searching information in the tourism sector and dealing with the problem of online ticket booking. A model of the Agent has been proposed along with deployment and a performance evaluation result has been added to highlight on the effectiveness of the system. This paper also gives a brief introduction to intelligent agents and electronic commerce, followed by a review of agent technologies involved in buying and selling and the methodologies to endorse future digital geography with intelligent agents.