The shortage of transport infrastructure investments and coordinated policy instruments, the increasing volume of private vehicles around many European and global cities over the past few decades, and the shock caused by COVID-19 pandemic, have originated one of the most transformational periods in Transportation’s history. Previously predominant trends and business models are now being challenged or even scrapped, and new mobility services and transport modes, such as autonomous vehicles, ride-sharing, Mobility as a Service promise solutions for decreasing car ownership (thus mitigating traffic congestion), as well as contributing to a more sustainable transport network [1, 2]. To successfully implement such business models and services, it is necessary to go beyond the traditional traffic management systems to coordinate and manage the traffic network and optimize traffic flows of our future cities.
The FRONTIER project introduces the Autonomous Network and Traffic Management Engine (ANTME) facilitating the integration of different modes for both passengers and freight, by realising interoperability among control centres dedicated to the management of various transportation services. Using predictive analytics, anomaly detection, and event driven identification and classification algorithms emerging situations on the different transportation services will be defined and will delineate scenarios which may unfold in the near future. For each scenario, ANTME will dynamically generate response plans using a knowledge base of network states and management strategies.
In this way, the future traffic management systems will incorporate multimodal strategies among the stakeholders, providing common situational awareness and response plans which will ensure the operational smoothness of the network.
Written by IBI Group, which leads the related work package, responsible to design and deliver the Autonomous Network and Traffic Management Engine in FRONTIER Project.
References
- HERE (2017). How autonomous vehicles could relieve or worsen traffic congestion. https://www.here.com/sites/g/files/odxslz166/files/2018-12/HERE_How_autonomous_vehicles_could_relieve_or_worsen_traffic_congestion_white_paper.pdf
- Liljamo, T., Liimatainen, H., Pöllänen, M., & Viri, R. (2021). The effects of Mobility as a Service and Autonomous Vehicles on People’s Willingness to Own a Car in the Future. Sustainability, 13(4), 1962.