Prelude

The transport along with other key infrastructure sectors (such as telecommunication, power, etc.) plays an important role in economic and technological growth of the country . The manufacturing, mining, agriculture, trade and banking are other sectors of importance, but their performance significantly depends upon the quality of transport services. In the absence of adequate infrastructure for transportation of goods, economic and social growth of the nation will remain constrained. This argument is further strengthened by a recent study which suggests that every percentage growth in the economy presumes a growth of 1.2 -1.4 per cent in the transport sector.

Since mid-1990s, the implementation of the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) project, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), the National Highway Development Project (NHDP), the increase in access controlled roads and expressways along with the participation of private sector have contributed substantially to upgrade the national road transport network. In addition to above, there has been substantial improvement in transport by rail, air and waterways.

In the recent past, Government of India has recognized and put special emphasis for development of infrastructure in transport, communication and spatial data (National Spatial Data Infrastructure) among many other areas of technology.

Current scale of developments in the road transport in India:

The Need

In India, the road transport has traditionally been preferred for the movement of goods due to flexibility in routing including door-to-door delivery. In the fast growing competitive market, the emphasis has also moved to the quality of the service including the collection and delivery of goods in a timely and reliable manner along with dissemination of information on movement of goods from place to place, availability of infrastructural facilities for efficient handling of goods en-route and collection of payments.

The transport operators, world wide, have effectively used the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for dissemination of information regarding pick-up of the goods from start location, monitoring of the same en-route, delivery to the end customer and collection of payments. Along with speedy delivery and world-wide reach, the performance of these operators is judged based on the value-added services including reporting the current location of the goods; say using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and RF based Identification (RFID) in the supply management chain at any given time.

The Technology Drivers

The recent advances in technologies including Electronics (Advanced Sensors, RFID, FPGA, Nanotechnology and MEMS), Information (RDBMS, Multi-media, Internet and Intranet and Network security in enterprise-wide implementation), Communication ( Radio, GSM, GPRS, CDMA, MSS, WAAS, Bluetooth and TETRA), and Geomatics (Remote Sensing, GIS, Cartography and GNSS) have contributed amply to improve the efficiency and safety of road transport.

GNSS encompassing GPS (by US, operational since mid-nineties) , GLONASS (by Russia, currently getting rehabilitated) and GALILEO (by EU, to be operational by 2010) , refers to a satellite based navigation system meant to simplify navigation and tracking in unknown areas and meet position location requirements. It uses satellites and ground tracking systems in conjunction with a user receiver to determine and communicate its position precisely in longitude, latitude and altitude at any moment. The user can define the optimal route (way points) by picking up his current position using GNSS receiver and inserting the destination location. He can redefine the route by suitably defining geo-fence (obstructions en-route, say water bodies, road blocks, mines etc.).

GPS comprises of a constellation of 24 satellites in six orbital planes, with a visibility of 8 satellites from any part of the earth at a given time. Similarly, GLONASS, once fully operational, will have 24 satellites in three orbital planes and GALILEO will have 30 satellites in three orbital planes. The quality of GNSS depends on the receiver having access to a number (preferably three, in a triangle) of satellites. It has been reported that adding GALILEO to GPS and GLONASS will enhance the coverage of this service from 55% to 95%.

In May 2000, US have revoked Selective Availability (SA), restriction imposed way back in March 1990 to use GPS. SA was a bias that distorted distances by up to several tens of meters. Bias varied from satellite-to-satellite, and over time, in an unpredictable manner. Removal of SA has enabled to locate targets within few meters. Recently, US has announced provision of two additional signals L2C and L5 (in near future) for civil applications through augmentation of existing constellation of GPS satellites. This has further diversified the use of GNSS across many segments.

The GNSS today supports a host of civil applications, including the very critical ones like:

Many of these applications have been extensively benefited from Internet, Geomatics products and services, Wireless communications and Mobile computing. Some of them have been augmented with the use of differential correction and transmission of the same through satellite based communication (SBAS). However, the largest growth in civil market is likely to come from the personal use of GNSS, in vehicles (in-car navigation) and mobile phones (location based services). It is expected that by 2020, the personal use of GNSS will become as ubiquitous as today’s use of the mobile phone and the reliance on satellite navigation will turn into dependence. The use of GNSS will certainly become an essential tool for business intelligence and daily lives.

Geomatics application and services primarily deal with spatial data. Substantial amount (~80%) of data, used in day-to-day decision-making process has a spatial component. Various governing bodies (local and national) use spatial data for planning and administration purposes. People use spatial data for making certain purchases, dining outside, entertainment, meeting friends, looking for alternate jobs etc. For navigation and tracking using way points defined by GNSS, spatial data is important. The information may be text, providing details of a location of interest and its periphery, or graphics showing shortest/ optimal route from current location to new location.

Convergence of wireless mobile and network access allows use of network architecture to deliver broadband services to wireless customers and support value-added services. Availability of large bandwidth, improved quality of services and recent advancements in Nanotechnologies (including MEMS) and Wireless communication (Bluetooth, WiFi, WiMax) make this converged wireless system an attractive solution for delivery of broadband services along with spatial information.

The connectivity of mobile devices with base station for navigation and tracking is important. Usually, these devices are periodically connected to the central database. In a more advanced approach, data is uploaded and downloaded between the base station and the devices using terrestrial or satellite network and viewed in client-server or Web environment.