We design and develop a service framework in which existing outdoor navigation services can be easily “plugged in”; provide a favourable environment for urban mobility management of blind and visually impaired people by building a mobility framework to facilitate a more viable and dynamic interaction between the different members of the urban transport ecosystem, such as the regular and visually impaired travellers. The framework will leverage both the information coming from legacy ITS (e.g. public transport) and crowd-based mobility services. In fact the involvement of the crowd (besides personal assistance, providing information/help), will be also useful in building and maintaining the “Infostructure” (i.e., information about the infrastructure) required for indoor navigation and mobility assistance. Trial sites will be placed in Hungary (Infoalap) and Austria (HGB) covering up to 100 end-users representing different aged-geographical-socio-economic groups that will be selected based on previously established criteria.
Objectives
Our goal is to support blind and visually impaired people in challenging tasks like participating in urban mobility, providing a simple, effective and affordable door to door navigation and mobility assistance solution. We also target when blind person plans a journey which includes travelling through unfamiliar indoor environments (subway systems) or visiting complex buildings (shopping mall, business centre). The envisioned service is also suitable for companies, offices (local government) where blind people can work or just turn-out, by helping to integrate them in an open community.
Expected results and impact
- enhanced self-management and enhancing autonomy;
- improved quality of life for older adults and their carers;
- informal carers continue working and participating in society whilst caring for relatives;
- encourage prevention and support to improve the well-being of older people;
- sustained health outcomes to regain independent lifestyles of older adults;
- improved efficiency of service delivery by new solutions; quality of service remains the same or improves.
Partners
Partners involved in the VUK project
- Project name: Visionless sUpporting framework – VUK
- Website: www.vuk-project.eu
- Coordinator: Bay Zoltán Nonprofit Ltd. for Applied Research (BZN)
- Duration: 36 months
- Starting Date: 01.01.2016
- Total budget: € 2.263.323,00
- Public contribution: € 1.558.141,00
Contact
Dénes Perényi
E.: denes.perenyi@bayzoltan.hu
T.: +36 46 560 131
