A KBS application for market research advice in transport

This paper presents some results of a knowledge based system (KBS) development applied to market research (MR) issues in transport. This application represents a rule production approach to decisions associated with the definition of appropriate survey procedures for various operation-management problems in a transport enterprise or agency. The basic idea is to provide an aid for the user (manager, student or practitioner), who is concerned with MR, but is not very familiar with this field or has some concerns over data-gathering and the use of that information. It focuses on specific applications in the transport environment and gives the user some support in maintaining greater consistency in his (her) decisions. The objective of this paper is to describe the system structure, to point out some important aspects and problems arising during its development and also to make some comments with respect to the further development of this and similar systems.