Understanding the content lifecycle in vehicular applications: first steps towards a generic software platform?

We are creating a generic software platform that supports a wide range of applications running on vehicle mounted Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs). A major aspect is selecting the key abstractions that should make writing applications easy. We derive a simple content lifetime model, by examining five example applications, consisting of three overlapping phases: the generation phase, the dissemination phase and the usage phase. This model abstracts away the underlying topology, e.g. vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure. We outline a generic log-based software platform that allows us to support applications that are captured by the simple content model generated.