-1- UDMS 2000, 22nd URBAN and REGIONAL DATA MANAGEMENT SYMPOSIUM September 11-15, 2000, Congress Centre Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands PROVIDING MULTI-MODAL ACCESS TO ENVIRONMENTAL DATA - CUSTOMISABLE INFORMATION SERVICES FOR DISSEMINATING URBAN AIR QUALITY INFORMATION IN APNEE Trond Bøhler 1 , Kostas Karatzas 2 , Gertraud Peinel 3 , Thomas Rose 3 , Roberto San Jose 4 1 NILU, Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Norway 2 Aristotle University Thessaloniki, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Greece 3 Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing (FAW), Germany 4 Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Facultad de Informatica, Spain ABSTRACT APNEE is establishing a uniform information portal on air quality in different European regions. Rather than elaborating sophisticated air quality management and forecasting approaches, APNEE strives to develop a technical umbrella for the distribution and customisation of existing air quality management systems. APNEE, in particular, employs several communication channels—be it short message services, mobile communication protocols, or street panels—to transmit information on air quality to selected citizens in urban regions in a customised fashion. Customisation refers to the tailoring of information content, i.e. the kind of warnings or recommendations for further actions, with respect to the user group registered, to the technical capabilities of the end-user devices targeted, and of course to the geographic location. APNEE will study the feasibility of different broadcasting methods and evaluate them with regard to acceptance, potential impact on citizen behaviour, future markets for online environmental information services for city authorities, telecommunication service providers and other entrepreneurs in the information society. In an overall stance, A PNEE will provide an enabling technology to implement European directives and national legislation for online dissemination of air quality information. INTRODUCTION The need for providing access to information related to the state and the management of the urban atmospheric environment has been rapidly increased for the last decades in Europe and in the United States (Elsom, 1996). Urban air quality management and information systems (UAQMIS) are more frequently required to include advanced capabilities of quick, effective and easy to understand environmental information. These systems are based on the need of city authorities and national governments to establish a framework, which enables them to take actions, in order to ensure that air quality is improved and relevant standards are maintained in urban areas. Such systems try to address complexities of interactions between the various physical, ecological, socio-economic and political aspects, components and actors related with urban air quality, thus posing a considerable challenge to planners, policy and decision makers and the general public. As a consequence, such systems should be able to provide to the public clear and easy to understand information on the state of the urban atmospheric environment and the management of actions resulting from policies and measures