Projektart: Gefördertes Projekt
mAIS - mobiles Automatisches InformationshilfeSystem

mAIS offers mobility-impaired / disabled people the possibility to perceive information acoustically or visually through selectable font sizes, font colors, background colors or/and by reading aloud at different speaking speeds The primary goal of mAIS is the equality of elderly and disabled people with non-disabled people as well as the integration of these mobility-impaired people into the modern information society. mAIS represents a great relief for this group of people in their mobile everyday life and in "living together" with modern information media. Whether at modern stops, in train stations, airports, ship terminals, shopping centers, in buses or trains, etc.. -everywhere and worldwide, information is reproduced via electronic displays and other information media. Therefore, one of the most important goals of mAIS was to prepare this information in such a way that it can be perceived by - people with age and physical disabilities - senior citizens (in general) - people who cannot read and write properly - tourists with disabilities and who do not speak German - and by non-disabled people, and this on a commercially available cell phone, which is virtually the main component of the system. For people with limited mobility, public transport and SPNV are the most important facilities for being mobile. Therefore, the focus and practical implementation of the EU project was mainly in the field of public transport and was realized in cities with different public transport project information systems. These include: - Kiel: Connection to the RBL (Rechnergestütztes BetriebsLeitsystem) - Flensburg: Connection to the FIS (Fahrgastinformationssystem) - Neumünster: Connection to the large display directly at the ZOB / train station - Integration of intercity stops During the development of mAIS, care was taken to cover the widest possible range of mobility impairments. Therefore, the following user groups were defined: - Visually impaired - Blind - Hearing impaired - Deaf - Dyslexic - Age-related mobility impaired - Non-disabled For these user groups, which can be expanded at any time, information profiles were defined that each user can select on his or her cell phone according to his or her needs in order to be able to perceive the information requested by him or her. This includes, among other things, different font sizes, font colors and background colors, as well as the ability to speak the information aloud in different tones and at different speaking speeds. In order to make the system usable for the blind and visually impaired, the development was expanded to include the additional application "mAIS + Talks". Talks is a screen reader program for cell phones that speaks aloud all key commands, display content and - in the context of mAIS - the timetable information. In a two-part field test, several scenarios of the mAIS service were tested for their use by users with different requirements and their functionality was demonstrated. mAIS does not represent an isolated solution. Rather, mAIS has been designed to be seamlessly extended to other applications such as train stations, airports, ship terminals, shopping centers, vehicles (train, streetcar, bus, etc.), and for the tourism sector, where lack of local knowledge and multilingualism will be the primary reasons for using mAIS. Application example: public transport Modern information systems focus the innovative technology used on information retrieval and dissemination. For the public transport application area, this means, for example, more accurate arrival times at stops, connection assurance at intersections, and up-to-date information for passengers at stops. However, this does not include all those who do not have adequate access to the new technology: The so-called "mobility-impaired people". With mAIS, these people are given the opportunity to read electronically displayed information - for example, at stops, in buses and trains - in a form that they can perceive: Be it in text form and / or by an announcement of the departure information. The main component of mAIS is a modern, commercially available cell phone. It is used to recognize the stop, determine the buses/lines departing from there and communicate the departure information belonging to the selected line, as desired by the user, either in text form and / or as a voice output.