A business content explorer for intelligent traffic projects

Abstract

We have built a standalone tool called the Business Content Explorer to provide traffic-domain specific content consisting of concepts, business rules, metrics and business processes readily available to IT professionals (software architects and developers) working on ITS projects. The novelties in the tool are twofold in terms of: (a) how the user can use the tool, and (b) how the content is collected and continuously updated. For tool usage, the tool supports not only browsing of the relevant as well as authoritative content but also its evolution over different projects. Specifically, the user can select specific subset that can be used in their project, enhance it, export and then re-import the extended content to reconcile it with the master content. For content creation, we follow a semi-automated method wherein public documents like Request for Proposals (RFPs), Tenders and Technical Papers are collected and then semi-automated content extraction techniques in off-the-shelf tools are used to obtain the content. Initial feedback from practioners indicates that the approach is able to provide valuable and much-needed content to them. © 2011 IEEE.