Introduction
Travel is one of an indispensable aspect in our life as well as technology. Number of users, who access social network via smartphones is more than 4 billion in order to acquire travel information (Chung & Koo, 2015) . They point out that social media can be a solution to provide users their “wants”, “needs” and “demands”. Therefore, it might be inferred that travel information is a vitally important factor for tourists. According to our investigation, there might be no application which covers all travel information in one application, including a safety aspect. Therefore, one objective of our application is to incorporate travel information in one application considering safety aspect. Hence this blog concentrates on featuring transportation, weather, emergency content, exchange money and emergency situations updates.
Travel information
Travel information could become an important factor for travellers by reason of increasing number of travellers annually (Chung & Koo, 2015). The former causes numerous obstacles. One of these is increase pressure on transportation (Li, 2010). Firstly, it is widely known that transportation is an essential factor to reach destinations and to move easily between places (Li, 2010). Secondly, in big cities, for example London, there are many transportation options available, for instance, trains, buses, taxis and underground, each of which reaches specific areas. Thus, distinguishing among these might be difficult or even remember. Since Public Transportation Datasets are available online (http://data.gov.uk/dataset/nptdr ), it could be easily utilised by using graph matrices and algorithms build a safest route generator (discussed in Briony’s feature Blog post). Combining advanced technology with travel information improves safety and efficiency of transportation and create a corporation environment between travellers and transportation means (Li, 2010). As a result, the application is based on to solve of the preceding points in addition to safety aspects and it considers two types of traffic information en-route and pre-trip route.
Weather updates
Weather is another aspect which might play a vital role in tourism, acquiring information about weather could be important in order to help to make a right decision. For example, Asian countries like Malaysia, they have a monsoon. Consequently on the weather forecast application, you can decide whether to take an umbrella or not. Additionally, in terms of safety, the application offers dangerous areas, such as city faces floods regularly and also there some mountains are about to fusion, so climbers can be alerted.
Emergency updates
Emergency updates in case of stolen or lost passports, or even your credit or debit card, your state’s embassy can assist you to find a way to solve the issue, for example, reissued a new passport. Thus, embassy details, such as contacts number and location, should be provided in order to deal with your situation immediately and that might help to make a right decision and procedure. The application provides this option to get your embassy readily in addition to communication means. Additionally, emergency numbers, such as, ambulances and polices, are taken into account.
Exchange money
Money exchange rates are important to understand rates of currency so that to be aware how much you will receive after an exchange (https://openexchangerates.org/). Meaning, application converts currency, which is another service in this application, to a required currency. Moreover, the application data would be updated frequently. Additionally, it provides places of post offices.
Places: this application also offers location and hotels booking according to Safety/Reliability rating of area (discussed by Kaley).
Problems and limitations
There are many application provide these kind of services. However, the problem is, according to our research,  it seems no one application combines all these features in one application in addition to safety. Limitations of the travel update information may be dependent on one’s internet connection. However this may be combated by offering the user a downloadable travel information pack (discussed in Emily’s feature post).
Conclusion
This application contains different options which are transportation, serious weather, emergency, exchange rates. Overall, this application’s feature reduce amount of cost and time which are critical factors in travelling. This might help tourists to make a better decision for their trips. Additionally, it can improve traveller’s experience.
This post represents that the group has chosen appropriate economic and social Contextual Factors that directly link to the marking criteria, and are vital to understanding what requirements a specific app feature has. This is based on market analysis, evaluation, and expert opinions. There is evidence that questions that the app feature has been chosen intelligently (by reference to literature and analysis) to produce a conclusion of professional quality, leading to a successful product.Â
This post additionally represents Engineering and Design decisions. These are based on the Contextual Factors and literature review which the group have tailored the product to incorporate. This means that the app feature has considerable research, fluent design and well planned out engineering steps. All of which are apparent in this post, and are also illustrated with media. This app feature dictates future engineering steps, illustrates how and why the product has been influenced in its design, and shows how engineering this app feature will solve problems.Â
References
Chung, N., & Koo, C. (2015). Telematics and Informatics The use of social media in travel information search. Telematics and Informatics, 32(2), 215–229. doi:10.1016/j.tele.2014.08.005
Li, C. (2010). Travel Information Service system for public travel based on SOA. Service Operations and Logistics and Informatics (SOLI …, 321–324. Retrieved from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5551560