As the component development for release 3.1 of the MOBiNET platform has finished and the components have been commissioned for verification and validation, the process of gathering technical and non-technical requirements for the MOBiNET platform is entering its final stage.
During the project, an iterative (agile) and use case driven approach has been applied to the development of the platform, resulting in multiple platform releases of which release 4.0 will be the final release. The development of each release is based on requirements gathered from multiple sources, the so called Service Working Groups (SWG), the Pilot Sites, external users and more.
As the development is an agile process, also the gathering and prioritisation of the requirements is done iteratively. For each release input is gathered from the requirements of service working groups and verification and validation by pilot sites. Before the start of each new development phase, the newly gathered requirements are prioritized during organized sessions.
The requirements for the initial platform have been gathered from pre-defined user stories and are described in deliverable D21.1.1. In order to gain additional input on requirements for the MOBiNET platform, the project identified ten (of potentially way more) mobility related services that could be greatly enhanced by a MOBiNET like platform. The identified services are Green Light Optimal Speed Advice, Usage Based Insurance, Multi Modal Travel Assistant, Ad-hoc Priority Route, Non-stop Truck, Parking Services, Business-to-Business Traffic related services, Demand Responsive Transit, Real-Time Traffic Information and VoiceInfo. The services are described in more detail on the MOBiNET website. For each of these services, a so called Service Working Group has been established which is responsible for enhancing the services and providing input on the required platform functionality during each platform release.
Besides these Service Working Groups, there are also eight pilot sites involved within the project.. These pilot sites are the primary users of each release of the platform and verify and validate each platform release by hosting and testing one or multiple of the earlier described services. The feedback from this verification and validation is taken into account with each next release. Also during the ITS World Congress in Bordeaux (2015), the MOBiNET Consortium organized a hackathon with the purpose to improve the MOBiNET platform by providing external parties early access to the platform and gather their feedback. An important result of this hackathon is that for using the service platform, not only the platform itself is important, but it is also necessary to make many high quality services available.
The goal of release 3.1 was to have all functionality required by the different service available and also have a platform with a level of maturity that it would allow external parties to gain access to the platform. So besides requirements that would technically improve earlier developed functionality, the requirements for release 3.1 were also focused towards end-user usability. For example, a requirement coming from one of the SWGs was that the Communication Agent component of the MOBiCENTRE should additionally provide an interface for Service Providers to retrieve Floating Car like data as this would make it easier for Service Providers to extend and improve their service, in this case Real-Time Traffic Information.
Also some requirements coming from end-user validation feedback related to improving the usability of the MOBiNET Dashboard and Service Directory. Examples of these requirements are extending the Service Description upload functionality to more extensively check the uploaded Service Descriptions in order to prevent the upload of possible erroneous files and also the validation of newly created user accounts by sending a confirmation to users’ e-mail address.
In the final stage of the MOBiNET requirements gathering process we will gather all necessary input for the final release 4.0, which would then include all necessary modifications coming from the verification and validation of the earlier releases.
Bastiaan Wissingh
TNO
MOBiNET WP Leader MOBiNET Requirements
