EasyTransport: an effective navigation and transportation guide for wide geographic areas

Abstract

In this paper we present EasyTransport, a tool that offers effective navigation and/or transportation advice to travelers in wide geographic areas. Unlike most existing navigational and transportation advisory systems that utilize predefined paths connecting transition points and produce answers based on static information, EasyTransport uses no precompiled knowledge to generate the respective paths. The tool's underlying algorithm is based on the breadth-first-search (BFS) algorithm and traces dynamically feasible routes on a terrain. Our rationale is to reduce the number of nodes representing the possible points for a transition and thus the complexity of EasyTransport's operation. Since our algorithm functions with increasingly coarse geographic granularities, it can achieve its successful termination fast. We, furthermore, suggest heuristics that effectively manage the potentially enormous data sets in the geographic areas involved EasyTransport, is a highly interactive system that allows for easy querying and features flexible adaptation and presentation of the generated answers, ensures short response times, and offers useful getting-a round-and-how guidelines.