AGIT & GI-Forum Conferences: GIScience and Mobility
Spatial information matters for almost all aspects of mobility. This holds true, of course, for people and goods. Distance to the next distribution center, travel time delay because of boarder controls, legal regulations for highway sections, topography impacting the range of an electric vehicle etc. All these examples are either explicitly (such as distance) or implicitly (geo-referenced speed limits, for example) spatial.
Of course, there are many disciplines that deal with certain facets of mobility. The variety ranges from the humanities to natural and technical sciences, from law to planning and communication. In fact, mobility moves many researchers and the body of literature is huge. As a geographer I’m interested in the spatial factors that influence mobility and the spatial impacts of mobility on the social and physical environment. Thus, it is my pleasure that the GIScience sister conferences AGIT 
and GI-Forum have a lot to offer for researchers and practitioners in the field of mobility. This is my personal schedule for the coming days:
Traffic Management
In the German language track, session A6 deals with spatial analysis and planning in traffic management, today at 1pm. The topics of the paper presentations range from accessibility and public transport quality (by the way, these are two crucial elements of our recent GISMO project ) to charging infrastructure and spatial factors that impact the modal share of cycling. I’ll have the honor to chair this session and looking forward to inspiring presentations and a vivid discussion.
Spatial Perspectives on Healthy Mobility
In the late afternoon, I’m going to host another Spatial Perspectives on … session. We have started in 2015 with this series of spatial perspectives on various mobility topics (the first edition of this session mounted in a very nice review paper on transport modelling ). Motivated by the research we have done the past to years at the intersection of health and mobility research, we launched a call for papers on healthy mobility in fall 2017. After a rigorous review, four papers made it into today’s session and I’m really looking forward to discussing social as well as technical aspects of healthy mobility.
Authoritative Road Data
Thursday morning is traditionally dedicated to the Austrian integrated road graph platform (GIP ), a standard for all authoritative, road-related data. This year several applications, which are built upon GIP data, are going to presented in session A9 . I’m especially interested in the bicycle routing application, which was co-developed by a former UNIGIS student.
Autonomous Driving
Three sessions in a row deal with autonomous driving on Thursday at the German language conference. The last years, these session were massively industry-driven. Checking the program, I expect some additional inputs from policy and research this year.
GISMO Expert Workshop
On Thursday afternoon, we are going to host an expert workshop, where the major outcome of the GISMO project is going to be presented and evaluated by experts. The head of the department for sports medicine at Salzburg’s medical university, Josef Niebauer , is going to provide a session keynote on healthy mobility. We will also welcome representatives from the Austrian Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology and many experts from industry and administration, who are engaged in corporate mobility management and health promotion.
There are going to be more sessions, which are relevant for mobility research or which deal with it in one or the other way. Dana, for example, is going to give a presentation on simulation platforms for modeling bicycle flows. There are two sessions on Smart Cities and planning and one on Urban Geoinformatics . Moreover, many exhibitor in the expo area do businesses in the mobility sector. So, there is a lot to do, to learn and to enjoy the next three days! If you are around, I’d be happy to connect in reality. For those who couldn’t make it to Salzburg this year, follow us in the social media realm (#AGIT30 , #GIForum2018 or #AGIT2018 or check the social media wall ).
gicycle 