Authors:
David Thulke
1
;
Felix Schwinger
2
;
1
and
Karl-Heinz Krempels
2
;
1
Affiliations:
1
Information Systems, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
;
2
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT, St. Augustin, Germany
Keyword(s):
Mobility Service Platforms, Natural Language Processing, Dialog Systems.
Abstract:
Due to a rise in novel mobility modes, urban transportation systems have become more heterogeneous and complicated in recent years. Mobility Service Platforms integrate different mobility services to offer integrated travel information, booking, and travel assistance, regardless of mobility provider or mode. Traditionally, users access these information systems through graphical user interfaces. Especially for the older population, such a sophisticated information system for a complex problem is problematic. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an approach and a prototype for a natural language interface for Mobility Service Platforms. The natural language interface allows access to the Mobility Service Platforms’ information systems and integrates other domains, such as event and place information into natural language queries. To this end, we introduce a simple unified data model for travel, event, and Point of Interest domain and design an interaction model for the natural languag
e interface. We evaluate the prototype in a case study with potential users. The evaluation shows that most users are more comfortable interacting with a mobility service platform using natural language instead of using different graphical user interfaces providing similar functionality.
(More)