My project is to develop a rail traffic notification system for use by emergency personnel. I have reviewed the Adaptive Hypermedia Application Model (AHAM) which can be used for conceptual development of an Adaptive Hypermedia Application (AHA). This report will discuss the background and features of the Adaptive Hypermedia Application Model. The three phase MSE methodology of Requirements Specification in terms of IC cards, Relational Graph, and IC Structure learned in class was applied. This report will go through each of these steps, and will then show the development of the system using AHAM. The report will also provide an overview of the project, and will provide some insight to why this project should be supported. Finally, the report will discuss the design details, application and usage of the project.

For my project, I proposed a grade level rail traffic notification system. The idea here is to provide positioning information to emergency personnel for trains that may be passing through their town. This information can be used by police, ambulances, fire trucks, and any other emergency personnel that may need to use grade level railroad crossings.

This project is important because small towns all across the country that are located by railroads. However since they are small, and there often isn't much traffic, many grade level railroad crossings do not warrant local governments to install (nor do they often have enough money even if they did want to install) a bridge over railroad track(s). In many cases towns were settled because of the railroad, but have now spread to either side of the railroad tracks. This results in cases where an emergency occurs on one side of the tracks, but the emergency personnel and equipment are located on the other side. As you may be aware, the length of trains can be quite large, so finding a passable crossing can be the difference between life and death. By providing information about blocked crossings due to rail traffic, emergency personnel can minimize any delay cause by the traffic blockage.

The general idea is to provide the information indicating passable crossings, maybe by map (visual), audio, or text. The system will request the type of device needing the information and the system will provide adaptive media to that device. If a dispatch system is a 8-9 inch display mounted in a police car, it may be able to display a small map. If it is a dispatcher on a PC a large map, possibly with more detail can be provided, and finally if it is a cell phone or PDA carried by medical personnel, they can see text indications of unblocked crossings.