CO-cities
| CO-cities | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Type: Pilot | |
| Tested system/service: Cooperative Systems | |
| Countries: UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria | ? test users |
| 30 partners | ? vehicles |
| Active from 2011/01/01 to 2013 | |
| Contact | |
| www.co-cities.eu | |
| Alexander Frötscher | |
| alexander.froetscher@austriatech.org | |
| AustriaTech Donau-City-Straße 1, 1220 Vienna, Austria | |
| Catalogue entries | |
| Data catalogue | Tools catalogue |
| Data sets used in this FOT: No data set is |
The following tools were used in this FOT: No tool is linked |
Current EU cooperative systems projects have demonstrated technical feasibility and positive user acceptance of cooperative mobility services. These common mobility services include dynamic navigation and intermodal routing and advice in real time but deliver no information from the traveler to traffic management.
Co-Cities is a pilot project to introduce and validate cooperative mobility services in cities and urban areas. It will develop a dynamic 'feedback loop' from mobile users and travelers to the cities' traffic management centres, and add elements of cooperative mobility to traffic information services.
These software extensions are based on the In-Time Commonly Agreed Interface (CAI), and the pilots will be run in the cities of Bilbao, Florence, Munich, Prague, Reading, and Vienna.
The result of this validation of cooperative mobility services will be an increased exchange of experience between public authorities and TISPs in Europe and a faster take-up of best practices.
Key milestones of the project
- Confirmation of full equipment functionality in the single participating cities of the project
- Provide Dissemination Materials for the demonstration sites
- Interfaces are tested and validated. All defined services are confirmed to work under lab conditions
- Confirmation of service delivery conformance and passed alpha test
- Start of the demonstration phase and data collection at test sites
- Sign off of ref. platform integrated with resp. interface installation & extension in TMC ́s of the cooperative cities
- Confirmation of interfaces and service delivery conformance and passed beta test
- Perform a series of city workshops with stakeholders (main results validation phase & consequences)
- Organize a final workshop at a Cooperative Cities conference
Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme, Pilot Type B
Details of Field Operational Test
Start date and duration of FOT execution
The pilot phase in general starts in 2012 and in detail it depends on the city.
Geographical Coverage
Co-Cities will be tested in five European pilot cities: Reading (UK), Bilbao (Spain), Florence (Italy), Munich (Germany) and Vienna (Austria).
Objectives
Co-Cities aims to achieve a number of objectives envisioning to improve the traffic information distribution and to adapt it to the users' needs:
- Objective 1. Extend the In-Time Commonly Agreed Interface with a “feedback loop” to enrich mobility services with cooperative elements.
- Objective 2. Extend the number of cities which install this interface and connect it to the traffic management centre for a regular feed of data and information.
- Objective 3. Develop a fast and reliable validation process for cooperative traffic information services by using a "reference platform" based on the users' feedback.
- Objective 4. Contribute to the objectives of improved road safety, increased energy efficiency, higher comfort and sustainability of transport in urban areas.
- Objective 5. Make transport information services more attractive and appealing to users in urban areas.
Expected Impact
Following target outcome, characteristics and expected impacts are estimated in the ICT PSP Work Program for Objective 1.3: Energy efficient co-operative transport management systems and addressed by the Cooperative Cities proposal:
1. "Contributing to the uptake of European innovative ICT based mobility services for sustainable and energy efficient transport systems, thereby reducing C02 emissions."
The first target outcome mentioned in the work program will be fully addressed by setting up the described transport information services based on the In-Time Commonly Agreed Standard Data Interface with European wide Traffic Information Service Providers (TISP) which have the opportunity to test and validate the interface and than prepare the uptake of these services in European cities and regions. On one side the participating cities support this uptake with their participation and data provision and proposing an advanced set of mobility services and on the other side the service providers can propose a set of common services to their user groups and foster the fast adaptation to feedback and user acceptance. These services will be tested in 3 In-time cities and 2 new participating ones, Prague and Bilbao and this demonstrates that the concept is interesting for cities interested in extending their mobility services. Only the strict budget limitations of the call prevented a further extension of the group of cities, which is demonstrated by the fact that follower cities, e.g Reading in the UK have joined the group even knowing that the project efforts can only be co-funded by a very limited budget.
For the wider uptake WP 6000 will elaborate a roadmap for deployment of cooperative services in cities and propose best practices to interested Cities and urban areas depending from their current status of equipment and the next planed steps for extending the information services.
As this results have also a policy implication also the recommendations for public authorities and policy maker with support the wider uptake of ICT based mobility services.
"Planning for the up-take of the technologies beyond the project."
All partner of the consortium are participating because they expect an up-take of the piloted technologies beyond the project. Key enabler is the service-oriented middleware infrastructure providing a number of data/services, covering individual traffic, public transport, weather, location based services, inter-modal transport planning, that enable the operation of end-user applications (e-services) by the Traffic Information Service Provider (TISP). This approach is seen by the partners as milestone in the external access to distributed data and content sources originally available from different heterogeneous providers. So in future for the TISP not several interfaces to the single data/service providers of a region are necessary, but all data are available via the harmonised standardised open interface in one place !
As it can be seen in the pilot description, also the single regional operators/pilots are expecting a huge benefit in offering data/services via the In-Time interface and have planned to expand the In-Time installation after pilot testing (e.g. it is planned to expand the Munich pilot solution to whole Bavaria). The fact alone that the Cooperative Cities have already invested large sums in the development and generation of RTTI services and plan to expand them in the future to mobile devices and dynamic navigation support is the best indicator that the developed technologies are transferred to daily operation after the project.
2. "Improving the readiness of the Member Sates for investments in upgrading their ICT infrastructures (in particular communication and sensor networks) in support of mobility."
In WP 6000 a roadmap for the deployment of cooperative services in urban areas will be developed, where all stakeholders and their interactions are identified and the partner experiences of the testing and validation phase incorporated together with the best practices of cities. On the basis of this depoyment road map financial or other benefits for the main stakeholders are identified, thus pointing out the business cases for the involved parties. Even more as single best practices the direct involvement of other cities in the Cooperative Cities Forum will give them the opportunity to discuss the details of the implementation with their peers and hereby highlight the best strategies to extend mobility services in urban areas.
The second reason to improve the readiness of member states for the investments in upgrading their ICT infrastructures is the combination of publicly available data and their future use in common and widely used consumer electronic products like a navigator or a smart phone. This makes this option for public investment particularly interesting because you can expect to reach a large number of mobile users with an initiative to enhance mobility services in urban areas for all modes of transport in the full respect of the principle of comodality.
Concerning the impact on the reduction of pollutant emissions it is planned to use data collected from probe vehicles to constantly monitor the operational effectiveness in terms of energy efficiency of the traffic control strategy. Additionally the questionnaire used for the user acceptance testing will also deal with questions like "how has the information influenced your travel route" that will give additional hints about the impact on the reduction of traffic pollutants.
Generally it is expected that services like the e-service proposed in Cooperative Cities will result in changes of the mobility behaviour. These changes decrease the negative impacts of road traffic on the environment. In this context the environment covers both, road network and natural environment:
- There will be less congestion along the road network, leading to enhanced traffic safety. In parallel the use of the road infrastructure will extremely be influenced by direct dynamic information exchange from traffic management to travellers. E.g. early rerouting to a near park and ride place, ..
- But major impact will be on the natural environment by reducing: pollutants and CO2 Emissions, particle emissions, noise, etc.
The approach selected in Cooperative Cities can only be achieved on a European level because the agreed solution from the Cities needs to be attractive to service providers for the market scale they envisage in the EU even if the integration with the available data needs to be achieved at regional or local level.
3. “Combine existing pilot implementation schemes of Co-Cities with the future initiatives of the EC in relation to the Future Internet PPP tenders and enlarge or extend the pilot implementations to further cities and regions.
Results
Lessons learned
Main events
- Co-Cities will be presented in the 1st SmartCity Expo & World Congress in Barcelona (Spain). This event is organised by ATOS, Spain, who is partner of the Co-Cities consortium.
- There will be a both / demonstration at InterTraffic in Amsterdam, March 26-30 2012.
- Co-Cities will be a demonstration at the 19th ITS World Congress in Vienna, October 22 - 26, 2012.
Financing
Summary, type of funding and budget
Overall
The total budget of the Cooperative cities project amounts to 3,901,724 Euros.
Public
1,950,862 Euros will be subject to grants by the European Commission.
Private
1,950,862 Euros will be subject to grants to self-financing by the project partners.
Cooperation partners and contact persons
- Coordinator:
AustriaTech - Federal Agency for Technological Measures Ltd.,
Alexander Frötscher, Gerald Lamprecht, Lena Reiser
- Partners:
- Softeco Sismat s.r.l.
- Telematix Software, a.s.
- Fluidtime Data Services GmbH
- Brimatech Services GmbH
- TomTom International B.V.
- Ropid - The Regional Organiser of Prague Integrated Transport
- Polis
- Atos Origin Sociedad Anonima Espanola
- PTS Planung Transport Verkehr AG
- Asociacion Cluster Del Transporte Y La Logistica De EUSKADI
- Regione Toscana
- Reading Borough Council
- MemEx s.r.l.
Applications and equipment
Applications tested
- Interoperable and multimodal RTTI services to end-users, offered by Traffic Information Service Providers (TISPs), will use different hardware and software platforms such as personal navigation devices, smart phones and web services and develop Europe–wide services based on regional traffic and travel data.
- Business-to-business services will enable Europe-wide Traffic Information Service Providers (TISPs) to cooperate with regional and urban authorities in fields such as strategy-based routing and adaptive mobility services
Vehicle
Equipment carried by test users
Infrastructure
The central part of the Co-Cities concept is an interoperable and multimodal Regional Data/Service Server (RDSS), which is a service-oriented middleware infrastructure providing a number of data/services. These cover and enable the operation of end-user applications through Traffic Information Service Providers (TISPs). For the validation of cooperative service concepts, Co-Cities covers the full “feedback loop” from the end users to the TISPs and regional and local authorities.
Test equipment
- Reference platform: Car pc with in vehicle HMI, and connection to CALM based Communication Gateway as developed in the FP6 IP COOPERS and CVIS, Navigation software platform with input from Data channels via different communication technologies and visualisation on the HMI with the use of a split screen function on HMI.
- Service platforms: in vehicle navigation devices with layer for service presentation to users, and an interface to feed in local traffic information via GSM/UMTS communication technology. Tom Tom HD traffic platform with users in several European Countries and data feed from Teleatlas.
- Smartphones with running PT and personal navigation software, and interface to feed in local traffic information and present it to the mobile user.
Methodology
Pre-simulation / Piloting of the FOT
Specification of the steps of system validation for the phases:
- technical testing of interfaces
- reference platform test per service
- service quality evaluation
- specification of an effective process to validate the Cooperative City information services from the participating city perspectives
- giving access to the work to external participants, e.g. from the follower cities
Method for the baseline
Definition of the testing and validation steps
- based on the use case list and user groups
- of existing elements and access to common data interfaces
- system extension and their testing and validation, with requirements and pass criteria in the single validation steps
- key aspects of the reference system and the test cases for services and the validation in the single cities
Techniques for measurement and data collection
- Definition of the ITS system specifications for efficient extensions with standard modules
- Two steps validation concept for services and cities
- Definition of the common ITS system elements and the system extensions in the single city with reference to cooperative elements
- Specification through the service providers, how to get access to end user groups (in terms of data, service generation process and performance evaluation
Collected data:
- User acceptance of the delivered and piloted services in the pilot cities of Co-Cities;
- Data services from the TISP to the traffic management centres of the cities involved but also to other transport modes and operators;
- Comparative Assessment of the delivered data and information services against a “reference platform” in order to identify best practices and enable the exchange of experience between stakeholders.
The ownership of the InTime data will be with the operators within a city/region. The generated end user services will be with the traffic information service providers (TISP). The data generated by the single user and used by the oprator will be owned by the traveller and can only be used as anonymous inputs by the operators.
Recruitment goals and methods
Service Providers (project partners) at the respective test sites are responsible for providing contact data of user groups in order to enable direct contact to potential user groups, open user interaction channels for user involvement and feedback collection and enable (and support) the definition of relevant user groups and segments on the basis of the data that the Service Provider has in the respective city. The Service Provider supports the definition of user groups and segments on the basis of his experience and conducted research at the respective test site(s). Service providers which are active in more than one of the test sites may provide input about user groups and segments on a meta-basis.
Methods for the liaison with the drivers during the FOT execution
Methods for data analysis, evaluation, synthesis and conclusions
Provide fully working systems and confirm equipment readiness for validation phase in cities
- Coordination of all development activities comprising
- the reference platform
- interfaces
- data structures
- service contents
- Coordination of the service assessment in the cities involved
- Ensuring that service assessment and validation are carried out on a comparable and high quality level for each city
- Validation of the services in each city
- Data collection for evaluation
