Monday, August 25, 2008

Moving around Venice

Part of Venice's uniqueness derives from its being completely devoid of cars. Moving around in Venice means either walking or taking a boat. Every student going to Venice will get a boat pass (called imob) for the public transportation boats (ACTV), but once they get to Venice the will also discover that walking is often faster than taking a vaporetto or a motoscafo.
As the project on getting old in Venice will also find out, crossing the numerous bridges in Venice can be a problem for anyone with some kind of mobility impairment, which may include young mothers with a stroller, or tourists with large suitcases, as well as elderly people using a cane or a walker. WPI has developed the methodology still used today in Venice to collect boat traffic data, so this project team will summarize what we've done so far in the realm of boat traffic, but will also explore pedestrian traffic as well, , where we have not done much thus far.
The team will collaborate with Redfish in Santa Fe (NM) to organize boat and pedestrian data to support the development of advanced autonomous agent models that will help the city manage land and water traffic.

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