If you are going to the Mobile World Congress 2016 to be held in Barcelona at the end of February, visit the European Commission's pavilion (Hall 4 at the Congress Square) to watch a demo of SIMPLI-CITY. This project has created a next-generation European Wide Service Platform (EWSP) which integrates several apps to offer easy usage of data from many different sources, by incorporating mobility-related data on, e.g. traffic, parking spaces, or charging stations for electric cars; it then presents this information in a safe and non-distracting manner. This could help developers produce new SIMPLI-CITY apps are running on top of the Personal Mobility Assistant (PMA), which is running on your mobile device. Thanks to the PMA, all SIMPLI-CITY apps have the same “look and feel”, include a voice recognition and management system, and can use services developed by third parties, also allowing third party providers the creation of mobility-related services as well as the creation of apps.
In fact, SIMPLI-CITY provides apps that are on the top of the most demanded services from European car drivers. For example, the SIMPLI-CITY Environmental Awareness Rising has many different functions, such as: more ecological alternative route suggestion, eco-driving monitoring, calculates continuously the achieved eco score on the basis of several driving parameters (speed, gear, acceleration, and deceleration); eco-driving Contest management, allowing drivers to compete with each other in order to achieve the best eco score in the “ecodrivers” community.
Economical driving is a big marketing aspect of today’s car manufacturers and also a huge political topic for countries across Europe.
The demo “Rising the Driver’s Comfort”, to be performed during the MWC, provides services and applications to entertain the driver and passengers of the car and will show the possibilities of the SIMPLI-CITY road user information system as an in-vehicle entertainment system. The demo uses external services and data sources , such as Google Maps or Here, and other open data sources, multimedia streaming data, and social network services, improving the passengers' travelling experience. It also integrates different entertainment services, including:
- Route planning and navigation;
- Notification of proximity of points of interest;
- Social network integration.
“SIMPLI-CITY as a Whole” (the fully integrated SIMPLI-CITY platforms with all their features) can definitely go to the market and be viable. Next steps for the platform could include rethinking some SIMPLI-CITY concepts, for example how to make them fully integrated with cars, which would require links with car manufacturers or equipment producers.