Open AccessApplying the LOT Methodology to a Public Bus Transport Ontology aligned with Transmodel: Challenges and Results
Author(s) -
Edna Ruckhaus,
Adolfo Anton-Bravo,
Mario Scrocca,
Óscar Corcho
Publication year - 2023
Publication title -
semantic web
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.862
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 2210-4968
pISSN - 1570-0844
DOI - 10.3233/sw-210451
Subject(s) - ontology , rdf , computer science , interoperability , ontology based data integration , public transport , ontology engineering , unified modeling language , upper ontology , process ontology , semantic web , database , software engineering , world wide web , engineering , transport engineering , software , programming language , philosophy , epistemology
We present an ontology that describes the domain of Public Transport by bus, which is common in cities around the world. This ontology is aligned to Transmodel, a reference model which is available as a UML specification and which was developed to foster interoperability of data about transport systems across Europe. The alignment with this non-ontological resource required the adaptation of the Linked Open Terms (LOT) methodology, which has been used by our team as the methodological framework for the development of many ontologies used for the publication of open city data. The ontology is structured into three main modules: (1) agencies, operators and the lines that they manage, (2) lines, routes, stops and journey patterns, and (3) planned vehicle journeys with their timetables and service calendars. Besides reusing Transmodel concepts, the ontology also reuses common ontology design patterns from GeoSPARQL and the SOSA ontology. As part of the LOT data-driven validation stage, RDF data has been generated taking as input the GTFS feeds (General Transit Feed Specification) provided by the Madrid public bus transport provider (EMT). Mapping rules from structured data sources to RDF were developed using the RDF Mapping Language (RML) to generate RDF data, and queries corresponding to competency questions were tested.