HOWTO search efficiently

The simple search is a tool to get search results with minimal effort. Simply type in a search term and click on the "go" button. You may combine two search terms or more - all facility entries that comprise all the terms you entered (even if stored in different data fields) will be listed. The second method is to click on a category to narrow your search i.e restrict the search to that category of facilities. After entering the search term, you get a shorter list, because only facilities matching the respective category are used.
You may enclose your combination of search terms into quotation marks to force searching for the string as it is. Otherwise the search would give results also if the terms occur in different data fields and far from each other.
E.g. the keyword search for "test bed" will list a facility containing the string "We are operating a test bed focussing on ..." but not the facility containing "We are testing rail coaches and cabins eqipped with beds..."
If you use a link form the map on the start page you may get less results than entering the same country name as search string, because in this case only facilities from the choosen country are printed.

The synonym based search helps you to get the desired results with one click. It searches automatically for all similar words to your search term (synonyms). This is only functional if you enter one search term.

The expert search is a powerful tool if you search for a facility in a specific country for example. All selection criteria you select are combined for the query. e.g. if you select "Germany" as country and "Inclusive design" as research area and "Rail" as category you get only German facilities that offer inclusive design in rail transport. Of course this reduces the amount of facilities you get in return. We have allowed multiple choice for the registering facilities for some data fields- so if you select an option which is not the main focus of the facility the chance is high that you get them on your list if you enter a term that is not related to the category. (e.g. select the category "environmental issues" and enter "economic optimisation" as search term). But you may well get void lists this way. If you don't find anything please check your search terms and use the synonym enabled "simple search" - some technical terms are sometimes written in different ways .

Search in the RSS database: We are collecting RSS-feeds from different sources (technology, science and transport). In the simple search you might also search in this database. Since the RSS-feeds are also from other segmenst than transport, please choose more specific search terms.


Keyword Index: This feature lists possible search terms for a composed search. You may choose multiple search terms from the list. Navigation is done via clicking on the alphabeth. Please note that this is a manually compiled list. It was based on the entries of the facilities but may a few contain search terms not beeing mentioned by the facilities having changed their entries themselves.

The results are shown in the same manner for both search types (simple and expert). You have the possibility to choose the type of sorting. The sorting according to visits simply looks at how many times the respective facility has been viewed (visited). There are provisions against multiple counting when the facility is viewed several times in short time intervals by the same client. Individual and commercial influence on the results is impossible. It only depends on how attractive the search profile resp. the short presentation of the facility shown in the short list is.

Please apologise for typing errors - the data is supplied by the facilities themselves- please inform them or us about mistakes (broken links, misspellings...). We will try to let it correct it ASAP. You may find a "q.c." icon near the name of facilities having been checked by the quality assessment of the intransnet project. This is by no means a guaranty that data is correct but guarantees that the data is useful and all necessary data has been given in an appropriate way.

Description of Additional Functionality:

Up&Download: This part of the etra.cc website serves as repository to documents of interest to researches. These may be papers and posters but also presentations. Categories allow to browse through your area of interest. If you have uploaded a document and want to delete it please click on "upload a document" to show all documents you have uploaded. We support a multitude of formats MS Powerpoint (.ppt), MS Excel (.xls), MS Word (.doc), Portable Document Format (.pdf), Compressed images (.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif). Documents will be uploaded as they are. Please add a short description to allows user to have a short check of the entries. You may leave the field "filename" empty to force the usage of the real name of the document. Size of the uploaded documents may be up to approx. 6 MegaByte.

Event Database: etra.cc is constructed as network of transport research facilities. Conferences and exhibitions are an important place to meet and discuss possible co-operation. This part of the intransnet web site allows not only to search for events in selected countries but also to show your attendance or to add additional events if you are logged in with your account you created registering your organisation or facility at www.intransnet.sk.

Shortcuts:

ITRD: The International Transport Research Documentation (ITRD) is a co-operative world-wide database ofinformation. The database has been in existence since 1972, and constitutesone of the major activities of the OECD Programme of Research on Road Transport and Intermodal Linkages (RTR). The ITRD contains more than 300 000 bibliographical references on transport research literature in OECD and non-OECD countries. Each record contains an informative abstract, from the world's published literature on transport (reports, books, journal articles, conference proceedings). About 10 000 references are added each year. There are 4 official languages represented in the database: English, French, German and Spanish. Each record is available in one of these languages. The ITRD also includes summaries of on-going research in participating countries via the Transport Research in Progress (TRIP) product.

TRIS: The Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS) Database is the world's largest and most comprehensive bibliographic resource on transportation information. TRIS is produced and maintained by the Transportation Research Board at the National Academy of Sciences of the US.

Copyright notice ©

etra.cc partners, 2002-2004 Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged, save where otherwise stated. Where prior permission must be obtained for the reproduction or use of textual and multimedia information (sound, images, software, etc.), such permission shall cancel the above-mentioned general permission and shall clearly indicate any restrictions on use.

Personal Data Protection

etra.cc is committed to user privacy. The policy on "protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by etra.cc" is based on Regulation (EC) N° 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000. This general policy covers the etra.cc Web Sites, within the *.etra.cc domain. Although you can browse through most of these Web Sites without giving any information about yourself, in some cases, personal information is required in order to provide the e-services you request. Web Sites that require such information treat it according to the policy described in the Regulation mentioned above and provide information about the use of your data in their specific privacy policy statements. In this respect: For each specific e-service, a controller determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data and ensures conformity of the specific e-service with the privacy policy. The etra.cc Web Site, within the *.etra.cc domain, provides links to third party sites. Since we do not control them, we encourage you to review their privacy policies. We will only disclose information to third parties if that is necessary for the fulfilment of the purpose(s) identified above and to the mentioned (categories of) recipients. We will not divulge your personal data for direct marketing purposes; How you can access your information, verify its accuracy and, if necessary, correct it. As a data subject you also have the right to object to the processing of your personal data on legitimate compelling grounds except when it is collected in order to comply with a legal obligation, or is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, or is to be used for a purpose for which you have given your unambiguous consent; How long your data is kept. We only keep the data for the time necessary to fulfil the purpose of collection or further processing;

NAVIGATION Philosophy

The navigation is of the type completely round-trip. This means that you may perform a simple search for facilities - go to the details of one of the listed facilities with one click - show the organisation operating the facilities with one click - goto another facility of that organisation with one click- and goto expert search to refine you search. So you have a very redundant representation of the data- without the need to learn complex searching algorithms. From the detailed data sheet of the facility a link allows to go back to the list of found facilities.

ANTI SPAM Philosophy

We do not show email addresses of contact persons even in the HTML-source in order to avoid robots to collect those addresses for spam. You may use the contact forms to send the persons personal mail. We do not store this correspondence so full privacy is given.