Research project MD/DD/02 (Research action MD)
Research objectives
The goal of the SMIS is to develop, through the Internet network, a user friendly information tool about mobility.
The main objective is to guide all potential users to information and data related to transport and sustainable mobility in Belgium. In particular, the SMIS helps the researchers and governmental authorities and others actors active in the field of sustainable mobility to find dataources (persons, institutions, activities, products,...) related to their fields of activity.
The system crossing the several disciplines involved in sustainable mobility (economic, institutional, sociologic, environmental), is a first step to make the needed bridge between usually normally separated disciplines and actors (governmental, economical, society, researchers,...).
At the same time, it offers information to those that deliver input to the SMIS database on the status of the collected information, and the possibility to present their information. The SMIS offers also understanding of possible information gaps in the research activities or research knowledge required to set up policies in the field of sustainable mobility.
Methodology
The project presents three aspects: first the contents and its format, and also a technical aspect to assure the interactive and user friendly character of the system.
In the first phase, a consistent definition of a metadata record related to sustainable mobility is defined based on literature, international standards and technical meetings with the project participants and government officials.
The contents dimension of the project is formed by the collection of all relevant information related to sustainable mobility in Belgium (federal, regional, provincial and municipal government level; universities, research institutes, libraries) as well as international; the collected data are then transposed in the selected standard.
The technical dimension of the project consists of the development of a relational database based on the SMIS standard; to build an Internet site using available tools and in line with international accepted standards; and the link between the two allowing the database to be queried by a browser (resulting in dynamic HTML pages). In a later phase site-specific software will be developed allowing the browser to define complex queries in a straightforward way.
Potential users
All persons looking for accurate information or susceptible to deliver accurate information about transport and sustainable mobility in Belgium.
Link to Sustainable Development
The SMIS will be a part of a greater project of the OSTC called "Sustainable Development Metadatabase", this is the reason why our metadata standard is compatible with the standard chosen for this project.
Transport is a world-wide problem, it is responsible for many problems such as atmospheric pollution, traffic jams, non-renewable energy consummation. Transport is one of the major goals for the coming years. To try to solve this problem we need, in order to develop efficient policies, to dispose of relevant information, wich is the role of the Sustainable Mobility Information System.
SMIS: Documentatie van de software-infrastructuur: eindverslag deel 1
Brussel: DWTC, 2001 (SP0846)
[To download]
SMIS: Système d'Information sur la Mobilité Soutenable: rapport final partie 2
Bruxelles: SSTC, 2001 (SP0847)
[To download]
Système d'Information sur la Mobilité Soutenable (SMIS): résumé exécutif
Bruxelles: SSTC, 2001 (SP0848)
[To download]
Sustainable Mobility Information System (SMIS): executif summary
Brussels: OSTC, 2001 (SP0849)
[To download]
