Abstract

A frequently encountered problem in urban life is navigation. In order to get to some place we use private means or public transportation, and if we lack clear directions we tend to ask for help. We will deal in this paper with the descriptions of subway routes and their automatic generation. In particular, we will try to show how the relative importance of a given piece of information can effect not only the message but also the form. 1 Introduction: the problem A frequently encountered problem in urban life is the use of public transportation: we have to get from here to there and quite so often we don't know how. As it is not always possible to get help from a person (be it because nobody is available, or able to speak our language), we might appreciate assistance of a machine. In order to convey to the user "useful information", we must define what "usefulness" means. For example, if we tell someone how to get from one place to another, we hardly ever specify all the intermediate ...

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