Framework of Aspects for the Evaluation of Multimodal Journey Planners

Abstract

Nowadays, several journey planners are available for users with various functionalities. The aim of this research was to provide an overview of European journey planners considering the perspective of the user. Therefore, a framework of aspects was defined, which contains aspects of route planning services, booking and payment, handled data, and supplementary information. Based on these aspects, an evaluation method was elaborated to compare and rank the journey planners. The method consists of two main steps. First, the journey planners were compared (scoring) to each other, which resulted in the general evaluation number. In the scoring step, multi criteria analysis was adapted, because it produces clear and comparable results. As a second step different user groups were introduced and, using preferences of these groups (weighting), the average evaluation number was calculated. Finally, the elaborated method presented a quantified evaluation and ranking of multimodal journey planners, which supports choosing suitable journey planners for the users.