Near Real-time Mapping Using Shared GPS Data from Stranded Commuters

Japan is known as one of the world’s most quake-prone countries. Many commuters are stranded when major earthquakes occur in Japan. Most of the stranded commuters cannot use mobile devices to connect to the Internet because of the failure of other communication channels. In this paper, we propose sharing GPS data over a DTN (Delay Tolerant Network) to facilitate the generation of near real-time maps and support for stranded commuters in the event of earthquake disasters. To evaluate the network performance, we have carried out simulations using map data for Asahi Ward, Osaka City, in Japan. The results of the simulation indicate that the proposed method achieved the desired accuracy considering reasonable time constraints for near real-time mapping.