Experimenting advanced visualization in the operational context of transportation networks: the VENN project

Large transportation networks (e.g., electric power and telephone traffic networks) require continuous supervision to ensure safe and economical operation. Humans involved in this task are requested to provide continuous and real time feedback to an unpredictable system on the basis of a large and heterogeneous information volume. Effective visualization is an essential component to keep the pace in the current practice and open the way to new tasks of increasing complexity. The main objective of the VENN (Virtual Environment for Network Navigation) project is to investigate and experiment with applicability techniques, and notably operational context of the control room of dispatching centers of electricity power and telephone traffic transportation networks. Results of the research are expected to promote industrial practice by highlighting directions of development for a next generation of user interfaces for the supervision of transportation networks