AskWhere: Discover Europe with a new developed Service Platform

Last Updated: 02/03/2023 08:18     Created at: 02/03/2023 08:12

Final Presentation of NAVISP Project EL2 112 now available:

On Tuesday, February the 15th, 2023, Geosystems Polska Sp. Z o.o. (GEOSYSTEMS) presented the results of the NAVISP project “AskWhere – Informational Support for touristic destination selection and trip planning”. 

There are various applications that support the organization and configuration of journeys, be it for leisure activities or business trips. However, most of the time, users need several applications to design a trip according to their own preferences.

The aim of the project was therefore to design and develop a service platform and mobile application that helps individual users select destinations based on well-defined criteria, providing a comprehensive description of all potential destinations in Europe and increasing the likelihood of making an informed and reasonable decision. The system makes it possible to discover new places in Europe and assists in planning trips to selected destinations as well as outdoor activities near the destination. In addition, the solution is able to connect tourists with local service providers to simplify the stay and offer a selection of possible activities, while limiting unawareness of available options by expanding the user's information base.

At the end of the project, the AskWhere application was developed, which is available on the portal https://askwhere.eu/ and supports the user in selecting destinations and planning trips. In detail, the application provides informational content and exploration tools tailored for support of the process of selection of travel destinations in reference to a vast set of criteria. The service allows for interaction with noticeable informational resources. Each region was analysed and coded based on various criteria such as climate, air quality, landscape, availability of services, accessibility, popularity and cost. Based on this, the following tools were provided in the app: 

• Destinations Filter: allows to find locations in Europe that fits user’s criteria for potential travel destinations. It is based on a regular grid of 5 km wide hexagonal cells covering the application area. Each cell is described with a variety of criteria with a target filter that allows users to select those that meet their expectations. 
• Destinations Rating: allows users to rate the locations, save and share them. 
• Destinations Benchmarking: allows for comparison of entire characteristics of up to five selected destinations. Previously stored benchmarks can be reloaded, removed, and shared.
• Trip Planner: allows users to plan a trip to get to know places and their surroundings, as well as longer journeys by car, e.g. from home to a selected destination. There are three modes of routing available: driving, walking and cycling. The route is available for downloading as a GPX file that can be used in mobile devices, i.e. smartwatches.
• Destination Info: displays characteristics of destination as descriptions (i.e. landscape type and landscape attractiveness), graphic scale (i.e. touristic popularity or accessibility of restaurants), actual values (i.e. time of travel from the nearest airport – airport accessibility) and charts (for time variable climate parameters, i.e. average monthly sunny days

The project was part of NAVISP Element 2, which aims to maintain and improve the capabilities and competitiveness of the participating States' industry in the global market for satellite navigation and, more broadly, PNT technologies and services.

More detailed information can be found in the slides of the Final Presentation.