Monitoring of the Road Infrastructure Using Remote Sensing and Voice-Activated Technology

Participants: ASDE, ReSAC, Voice-Insight Ltd., NBT, Progeo

Considering the importance of the information related to the road infrastructure, the Bulgarian administration is launching a project implemented by ReSAC and partners for data collection using modern technologies. The main aim of the project is the create geodatabase of the transport corridors, using satellite data and additional field inspections. The data suppliers were SPOT Image (SPOT 5), EUSI (IKONOS) and Eurimage (QuickBird). The project will be finalized in the end of 2006.

The scope of the project is to propose a test prototype that would demonstrate the possibilities of achieving a leapfrog improvement in the planning and monitoring of the road infrastructure of the European transport corridors by using remote sensing data and complementary technology called VQL. The main aim is to complement the more traditional field inspections with satellite monitoring of road infrastructure and voice technology to allow collecting data on the field with high performance and reliability.

This proposal is in accordance to the following main initiatives:

• Development of the Trans-European Networks (TEN) and the introduction of the European standards in all transport sub-sectors;
• Creation of actual and reliable geodatabase for the road network as part of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure in accordance to GMES initiatives and the directives of INSPIRE “Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe”;
• Implementation of Decision of the Bulgarian Council of Ministers No. 761 from 24.09.2004 for the establishment of common geodatabase for territory, population and resources of Bulgaria.

These voice enabled field inspections are necessary and complementary activity to the monitoring and data collection of the road infrastructure using satellite images. Very high-resolution satellite data has the ability to provide actual information of the land cover/land use along the road. However it has a limited resolution for capture and properly identify single objects less than 0.6 meters. In those cases when the information from the satellite is not enough, field inspection with voice-enabled Tablet PC, containing images and graphical data, will provide and manage the data in efficient and consistent manner.

This system could provide enough information for strategic decision-making, related to the maintenance of the road network and the financial planning for these tasks. Using these technologies, the creation of a dossier for the road will be much faster and for much less budget, than the traditional surveying. In addition the data collected on the field could be used for validation of the result from the image interpretation.

The project is implemented by ReSAC (Bulgaria), Voice-Insight Ltd. (Belgium), New Bulgarian Technologies (Bulgaria) and Progeo (Bulgaria).

The Bulgarian Agriculture Pilot in the Frame of FP6 IST Project SAFIR

Participants: ReSAC, VRA, NBT, MAF

The Project SAFIR is developed under the Sixth Framework Programme of the EC and one of the project leaders is the company Voice-Insight Ltd. from Belgium.

The role of ReSAC in SAFIR project as local partner of Vratsa Regional Administration is to identify and develop new and interesting domain in order to prove the efficiency of the technology as well as to increase the reach and dissemination potential of the project. The pilot was focused in the field of agriculture, considering the importance of the future implementation of Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) in Bulgaria. The project started in the beginning of 2004 with duration of 4 years.

The Agriculture will be one of the most important sectors of the Bulgarian economy after the accession of the country in the EU. The implementation of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) of the European Union will have a huge impact on citizens in Bulgaria and will engage enormous resources of the Administration in order to manage properly the EU subsidies.

The process of managing the aid declaration and the control of subsidy distribution consists of different sophisticated services and activities involving as actors both the administration and the farmers. The IT framework will be the Integrated Administrative Control System (IACS) and the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS). There is a big potential of introducing (as well as testing) of the voice activated technology in the annual management of the EU subsidies, which could increase the performance of the system and guarantee the payments to farmers in due time. In particular, the introduction of SAFIR technology should be focused on field inspections - as one of the most time-consuming activities during the campaign, sometimes even a bottleneck of the whole process of subsidy management and control.

The analysis lead to the conclusions that the introduction of SAFIR technology in the part of field inspections and other filed activities, complementary to the Control with Remote Sensing will dramatically increase the performance of both LPIS and IACS systems and help guarantee the payments to farmers in due time. Additional benefits for the field users will be the shorter terms of field tasks completion, the decreased expenses for staff training, the improved accuracy of data and avoiding discrepancies in the field.

The pilot is implemented by following local partners: ReSAC (Bulgaria), Vratca Regional Administration (Bulgaria) and New Bulgarian Technologies (Bulgaria).

Voice-Insight Ltd. is positioned to become the leader in the field of voice enablement of Data Base Management Systems (“DBMS”). Voice-Insight’s software, VQL™ (Voice Query Language), is a unique automatic syntax-centric technology, which enables users directly to request and manage information from any database application by using everyday language.

Second Pilot Project on Preparation of the LPIS for Bulgaria - Rules, Technical Recommendations for Creation of the System on the Base of Test Area of Asenovgrad Municipality Using VHR Satellite Data

Participants: MAF, ReSAC, JRC

The Ministry of Agriculture of Bulgaria with the support of MARS-PAC of the Institute for Protection and Security of Citizen at the Join Research Center started two pilot projects for the preparation of the methodology for the creation of the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS). Both projects are implemented by the ReSAC.

The aim of the projects is to complete results obtained in the Pilot Study for Control with Remote Sensing (developed by ReSAC and AIRECTS - France/Spain) in a different context in order to define an overall strategy for BG and to prepare technical recommendations for the Block CAPI. Another important issue in these pilots will be to assess the situation of agricultural areas with the consequence on eligibility.

The analysis is based on archive VHR data from QuickBird, provided by JRC. Ref3D from SPOT Image is used for orthorectification of the imagery. The Directorate “Land Property, Registers and Information Technology” at the Ministry of Agriculture provided the digital cadastre of the Municipality of Asenovgrad.

A workshop with the participation of expert from ReSAC and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was organized in the beginning of September 2005 by the AGRIFISH Unit, in the frame of its support to Candidate countries for the implementation and control of the CAP (MARS PAC action of the JRC 6th Frame work program).

The objectives are:

• To provide a technical overview on the implementation of the Land parcel Identification System (LPIS) and the IACS GIS (regulation 1782/03);
• To discuss the first results of the Bulgarian pilot study on LPIS in Asenovgrad (started in July 2005) using the satellite imagery provided by the JRC;
• To provide recommendations for the implementation of the Bulgarian IACS-GIS.

FP 6 IP - IST - SAFIR Project

Participants: CCI-Vratsa, NTB-AD, Vratsa District Administration, ASDE-ReSAC

The SAFIR project will give each citizen and special user groups an equal opportunity to access and modify at any time interactively existing up to date e-government information thru easy devices as TV , wired and wireless devices (GSM/PDA),… from anywhere by usage of own voice in his daily language.

The objectives are:

• Offer easy transaction access to both PC illiterate citizens and special users like police, fire brigades, governmental employees (surveyors and other field employees in charge of recording facility assets modifications) while on the move. e.g.: permit forms, adequate field reaction to hazards, anonymous e-payment…
• Establish the techniques and procedures to have up to date data to be used by the citizens and the special users,
• Enhancing data modeling and voice domains through ontology and semantic in a multilingual enlarged Europe.

Pilot Study on Elaboration of Land Parcel Identification System on a Test Area in Bulgaria

Participants: ASDE-ReSAC, JRC

The Project objectives are:

• To test the process of implementation of LPIS on a pilot site from the point of view of technology and resources needed.
• To initiate the preparation of a methodology for the elaboration of LPIS in Bulgaria.
• To make a technical demonstration, enabling the estimation of the deployment of LPIS at national scale
• This study was proposed as a follow-up action by the ReSAC team and JRC after the final workshop of the project “Pilot study on the Control with Remote Sensing of Area Based Subsidies in Bulgaria”, held on 10-11 of February 2005 in Ispra, Italy.