Final Report Summary - VIAJEO (International demonstrations of platform for transport planning and travel information)
Executive summary:
The VIAJEO project is funded by the European Commission (EC)'s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) as a special international cooperation action (SICA) project. The project launched in September 2009 and completed in October 2012. The project has brought together stakeholders from Europe, China and Brazil. The VIAJEO project developed and implemented an open platform concept for mobility services. The open platform is able to integrate data from various data sources, e.g. fixed sensor data from transport operators, floating vehicle data from private data owners, public transport data etc. Use the integrated data, the open platform is able to improve existing mobility services and facilitate new services. The open platform has been implemented in four demo cities: Athens (Greece), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Beijing and Shanghai (China). Due to different local conditions and availability of data sources, different mobility services were implemented and demonstrated in the four cities.
During the three year period, the project carried out extensive dissemination activities. The project organised a number of workshops in Europe, China and Brazil to engage transport stakeholders. The project also invited local stakeholders and end users to experience live demonstrations and collect their feedbacks on usage of the demonstrators. The project published papers and organised special sessions at a number of international conferences. The project also published articles in transport professional magazines.
Overall, the project has achieved success in both technical development and demonstration. Through the project activities, the consortium members of VIAJEO have gained comprehensive experiences in carrying out mobility services and developing transport business in Brazil and China as well as developed extensive local contacts. Such experiences and local contacts would benefit their future business development.
Project context and objectives:
Technical challenges:
Congestion and air pollution are the challenges all big cities around the world face. It has been known that building new infrastructure cannot be the only solution to address the challenges due to limited space, environmental concerns and economic reasons. Therefore, in last two decades, transport solutions have been shifted from building new infrastructure to demand management policies, better management of existing network, and traveller information services. This trend has been driven and supported by new technologies, particularly the fast developed information and communication technologies (ICT). Use of ICT in transport, also known as intelligent transport systems (ITS) has brought revolutionary changes in transport industry and the way people travel.
There has been a revolutionary change in traffic data collection. To manage and maintain the transport network, considerable amount of traffic data is needed, in order to provide a comprehensive view on current situation of traffic network operation, to identify unexpected events, thus better management of the network, better planning of planned events and maintenance. It is not surprising that application of ITS initiated many new data sources which are significantly and fundamentally different from traditional traffic data. One of a notable data source which emerged in the late nineties is floating vehicle data. Floating vehicle data is a natural consequence of the rapid growth of global positioning system (GPS)-based navigation and vehicle tracking devices. The concept of floating vehicle data is to make an individual vehicle a remote sense by collecting its location and speed. Collected data from a number of vehicles can be then processed to generate speed information of current network, thus identifying congestion. Floating vehicle data has been proven as one of the fastest growing applications of ITS since 2000. It has been proven as a cost effective means of travel time collection and congestion monitoring.
GPS based vehicle tracking devices have also been widely used for management and operation of fleet, e.g. taxi fleet or bus fleet. Such device allows an operator to monitor location and speed of each individual vehicle of a fleet, resulting better real-time management and a better planning in the future. However, from traffic data collection aspect, such vehicle tracking devices also make any equipped taxis or buses as floating vehicle which can used to collect traffic information.
It is no doubt that such new data sources would have positive impacts on overall traffic management and transport operation. However, the new data sources, as indicated above, are significantly different from traditional data sources. For example, one of typical traditional data sources is loop data which can provide speed and traffic flow at a fixed location while floating vehicle data can provide traffic speed along a road section but not at a fixed location. Quality of floating vehicle data can be various, that is also different from data collected by fixed traffic senses. Therefore, it is a huge challenge to integrate different data sources even though to integrate traditional traffic data with new data sources has a potential to improve overall understanding of traffic situation, thus achieving a better management and planning.
The VIAJEO project proposed an open platform concept to facilitate the integration of different data sources, thus maximising the benefits of traffic data. Such integration can be used to improve existing traffic management and operation, fleet management, traveller information services. It also provides opportunities for new type of transport and mobility services.
Importance of international cooperation
As explained above, the VIAJEO project aims at development of an open platform concept to facilitate the integration of different data sources. The implementation of the open platform has been done in four cities:
- Athens, Greece
- Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Beijing, China
- Shanghai, China.
This project is funded as a SICA project. The project has engaged two of the most important emerging market countries: Brazil and China. Several reasons led to the engagement. First, as emerging markets today are experiencing unprecedented economic growth, their transport and mobility needs are increasing, creating in consequence transport issues such as congestion, air pollution, greenhouse emissions and energy waste. These countries face severe challenges in providing transport solutions to support economic growth and meeting citizen's demand in mobility. The demand in mobility is significantly increased with the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) due to massive urban migration, increased income and car ownership. Although the emerging markets have invested significantly into transport infrastructure it has been recognised widely that building new infrastructure is not a sustainable solution to meet the increasing demand.
Secondly, the environmental and energy issues are global challenges and cannot be solved by a single country or region acting alone. Therefore, in the last few decades, to address the global challenges, stakeholders from Europe and the emerging markets have been developing cooperation. The EC had financed such cooperation through the FP6 and FP7). Previous EC-funded projects, such as SIMBA and SIMBA II, have created a solid ground for the VIAJEO project. SIMBA (2006 - 2008) and SIMBA II (2008 - 2010) projects have established contacts with relevant local stakeholders. Working together with local stakeholders, the SIMBA and SIMBA II projects identified priorities and common interests in a number of countries including China and Brazil. The two projects also created working groups and carried out gap analysis of research and development (R&D) needs. An example of cooperation in ITS is illustrated below. Traffic information services have been identified as one of the priorities to cooperate with Brazil and China. A R&D project with live demonstration was recommended by SIMBA and SIMBA II projects.
The scientific and technical objectives of the project are:
(a) the design of an open platform with interfaces to a wide range of mobility services;
(b) the implementation of the open platform in Europe, and in the emerging economies, i.e. China and Brazil;
(c) the validation of the open platform
(d) the assessment of social and transport impacts of the implementation and demonstration of the open platform.
Potential Impact:
The VIAJEO project have involved end users, traffic managers, public authorities, transport operators, equipment manufacturers, vehicle manufacturers, service providers, application and service developers, content owners and providers, and research organisations. The project started with review of existing systems and planned systems in the four demo cities. The project also assessed data availabilities for the project, taking into account data ownership and characteristics of data, e.g. coverage and quality. The project also reviewed standards used by current systems in the four demo cities and available European standards which can be applied to the project demonstrators. A user survey has been carried out in each of the four cities. Survey subjects included end users, transport operators and transport planners who have been foreseen as potential users of the VIAJEO demonstrators. The survey results have been used for a gap analysis to identify gaps between users' need and existing systems, thus system functionalities were proposed in order to meet user needs and fill the gaps.
Based on the defined functionalities and availability of data, an open platform was developed with a number of interfaces to access different types of data. The development of the open platform is based on existing platforms owned by the platform providers in the consortium, i.e. PTV and MIZAR. Both companies have commercial mobility platforms which were adapted following recommended standards, data formats and interfaces. After the development of the open platform, each of the four demo cities started its work on implementation of the open platform, connection of the open platform to existing data sources at the local level. Before the implementation, each demo site has finalised services to be demonstrated and functions of each service. The implementation followed requirements of demonstrators and characteristics of the local data.
After implementation, each demo site city carried out laboratory tests to verify if each module performs as expected. After the laboratory tests, demonstration at each demo site city started. During the demonstration period, data were collected to evaluate technical performance of the demonstrators and to assess if user needs have been made. The evaluation in the four demo site cities followed an evaluation plan. The evaluation plan defined evaluation methodology, and a number of indicators for the evaluation. Users' view and social impacts of the projects were collected and assessed through questionnaire surveys and focus group meetings.
In Athens, VIAJEO has implemented a comprehensive database that integrates floating cars, data from fixed measurements and historical traffic data, which has led to the development of a dynamic traffic assignment model for mobility management. More precisely, companies which are responsible for passenger transport such as taxi companies are able to provide better quality services to their customers, providing to the driver the best dispatch route based on real-time traffic conditions in order to reach customers preferable location accurately. End-users obtain real time traffic information, via mobile device or a website, which is valuable for their daily trips in order to avoid unexpected traffic situation. Finally, the processed data and related traffic indicators provide traffic planners and authorities with aggregated information about traffic and support them to estimate the status of transportation system in the city. Three services have been implemented within the VIAJEO open platform.
Service A: Taxi fleet management and traffic information: The aim of this service is to upgrade the management of the taxi fleet in the Athens site and alert the drivers on incidents that may affect the taxi service. At the end, the taxi drivers will be able to provide better quality services to their customers, while their daily operation will become more effective. The service contains two core functionalities:
(a) dynamic assignment and navigation;
(b) traffic alerts.
Service B: End user multi-modal trip planning and traffic information: The scope of this service is to facilitate the mobility of residents and visitors in their transportation and mobility in urban areas. The users of the service have access to a web portal, through which they can find alternative routes from an origin to a destination using several transit modes, while they can also obtain traffic information that may be useful for their trips. The same information is also accessible through mobile devices. The service contains two core functionalities:
(a) multi-modal real time trip planning;
(b) traffic information.
This service has been implemented as a web-based application developed under the URL: http://viajeo.myroute.gr
Service C: Observatory for public authorities and traffic planners: the objective of this service is to provide to all interested stakeholders aggregated information on the traffic conditions of the Attica region. The VIAJEO Observatory addresses the needs of transport and traffic planners for data that would allow them to gain a sound picture of the traffic and transport conditions in Attica and, thereafter, to develop a structured decision and policy making. The service contains two core functionalities:
(a) traffic content management;
(b) transport, traffic and accident related indicators.
This service has been implemented as a web-based application developed under the URL: www.viajeo.imet.gr
In São Paulo, the open platform collects floating vehicle data from probe vehicles to evaluate the concept and to highlight benefits and potential deployment issues. These data are integrated with existing data sources from the traffic control centre in the open platform in order to estimate real-time traffic condition. The real-time data are stored in a historical data base for purposes of statistical and prognostic analysis as well as for the computation of optimal routes for private cars. Precise traffic profiles are assigned to the road network of the demo area. Fleet operators can use the real-time information and historical database, which can be accessed through standardised interfaces, for better operation and management of their fleet (e.g. taxi). The real-time information and historical database are used to support a web-based journey planner which is able to plan a trip for private cars and commercial vehicles. The dynamic traffic information is disseminated through a traveller information website. On-board equipment is coupled with high band width communication link through the general packet radio service (GPRS) channel. Moreover the on-board units equipped for floating data collection opens up the opportunity for safety and security application with special emphasis on the EC's emergency standards and policies. Differing from other demo sites which focus on one urban area only, Brazil demo site covers also surrounding motorways. The open platform will access motorway traffic data via MIST platform which was developed by IPT and is currently used to collect traffic data on motorway networks from different operators. The architecture of the demo site is shown below.
In the figure above input data are:
(a) data sources for traffic data and travel time covering São Paulo's highway and main road network;
(b) floating car data (FCD) collected by a small fleet of private vehicles.
Outcomes from the VIAJEO open platform are:
(a) core functionalities for traffic management and route planning;
(b) business-to-business (B2B) interfaces for third parties service providers and traffic management centres;
(c) business-to-consumer (B2C) interfaces for end users (mobile application and website).
The VIAJEO project in Beijing aims to encourage usage of public transport, reducing pollution and traffic congestions, so improving passenger information service is one of the main tasks. The project in Beijing connected real time traffic data collected by GPS / GPRS equipped public transport vehicles (over 200 buses from 6 bus lines), taxis (20 000 taxis in Beijing) and private cars. The open platform integrates data from the different sources to get a real-time 'picture' of current traffic conditions and providing to the users a real-time multi-modal journey planner (pre-trip and on-trip), for private vehicles as well as for public transport travellers (using metro and bus transport services), a real-time 'picture' of current traffic conditions, and the real time bus arrival information on displays at bus stops (20 in the area of interest). In addition it provides to operators an integrated view of the real time public transport operation and management integrated with display of real time traffic information. Three services have been implemented within the VIAJEO open platform. Cross modal journey planning and real time traffic information (Service A) provides a web based interface to users for PC and mobile device; the user can view the current traffic status (coloured links showing the current travel speeds on roads) and he can perform a route planning from A to B.
Real-time bus operation (Service B) provides information about the real time public transport operations, including vehicle management, for details about the status of the vehicles and check of planned service and real time service with alerts in case of deviation, improving the efficiency of the public transport service.
Passenger information display (Service C) provides information on displays at bus stops, such as arrival/departure time information or specific messages.
The VIAJEO platform Shanghai connects the real time bus position system via SIRI interface to the expert web service system. Also available through the expert web system are the (historical) traffic data and the pollutant data calculated for each road link through the HBEFA emission modelling. The Shanghai test site has developed three services around the VIAJEO platform:
- Service A: Real time bus information.
- Service B: Real time traffic data access via SIRI and Web display module.
- Service C: Historical traffic data and environmental modelling.
Service A (Real-time bus information) provides bus arrival time displayed at bus stops. Two bus lines were equipped for the demonstrator. A total of 40 buses were equipped with on-board devices and readers. A total of 34 bus stops were equipped with reader and displays. The on-board device consists of GPS unit and ZigBee short range communication in order to enhance accuracy of positioning. Service B (Real-time traffic data access via SIRI and web display module) integrates inputs from Service A (Real-time bus position and forecast arrival time) and Service C (Traffic emission model data) and display them at a website through a SIRI standard interface. The environmental emission model data and the historic traffic data are added as pre-computed data to the data store, form which geographic information system (GIS) functions draw the data on request and present it on the website. Functionality of Service B is shown below. Service C (Historical traffic data and environmental modelling) aims at the estimation of the pollution from road traffic. The model is able to estimate NOx, PM, CO2, HC and CO and results of the estimated pollution level are displayed on the web platform. The model is developed based on the European Handbook of Emission Factors (HBEFA). To apply HBEFA in Shanghai, the HBEFA emission factors needed to be calibrated to the different vehicle composition in Shanghai. Chinese engine emission characteristics were assigned to the best corresponding European equivalent. For the vehicle composition, statistics on Shanghai vehicle registrations were researched in order to identify the most likely composition of engines found in Shanghai traffic. Historic traffic data on the examined roads were used as input to the emission estimation for certain traffic situations. Road traffic situations and driving patterns were matched. Thus the calculation could be executed.
List of websites: http://www.viajeo.eu
Contact details: info@viajeo.eu
The VIAJEO project is funded by the European Commission (EC)'s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) as a special international cooperation action (SICA) project. The project launched in September 2009 and completed in October 2012. The project has brought together stakeholders from Europe, China and Brazil. The VIAJEO project developed and implemented an open platform concept for mobility services. The open platform is able to integrate data from various data sources, e.g. fixed sensor data from transport operators, floating vehicle data from private data owners, public transport data etc. Use the integrated data, the open platform is able to improve existing mobility services and facilitate new services. The open platform has been implemented in four demo cities: Athens (Greece), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Beijing and Shanghai (China). Due to different local conditions and availability of data sources, different mobility services were implemented and demonstrated in the four cities.
During the three year period, the project carried out extensive dissemination activities. The project organised a number of workshops in Europe, China and Brazil to engage transport stakeholders. The project also invited local stakeholders and end users to experience live demonstrations and collect their feedbacks on usage of the demonstrators. The project published papers and organised special sessions at a number of international conferences. The project also published articles in transport professional magazines.
Overall, the project has achieved success in both technical development and demonstration. Through the project activities, the consortium members of VIAJEO have gained comprehensive experiences in carrying out mobility services and developing transport business in Brazil and China as well as developed extensive local contacts. Such experiences and local contacts would benefit their future business development.
Project context and objectives:
Technical challenges:
Congestion and air pollution are the challenges all big cities around the world face. It has been known that building new infrastructure cannot be the only solution to address the challenges due to limited space, environmental concerns and economic reasons. Therefore, in last two decades, transport solutions have been shifted from building new infrastructure to demand management policies, better management of existing network, and traveller information services. This trend has been driven and supported by new technologies, particularly the fast developed information and communication technologies (ICT). Use of ICT in transport, also known as intelligent transport systems (ITS) has brought revolutionary changes in transport industry and the way people travel.
There has been a revolutionary change in traffic data collection. To manage and maintain the transport network, considerable amount of traffic data is needed, in order to provide a comprehensive view on current situation of traffic network operation, to identify unexpected events, thus better management of the network, better planning of planned events and maintenance. It is not surprising that application of ITS initiated many new data sources which are significantly and fundamentally different from traditional traffic data. One of a notable data source which emerged in the late nineties is floating vehicle data. Floating vehicle data is a natural consequence of the rapid growth of global positioning system (GPS)-based navigation and vehicle tracking devices. The concept of floating vehicle data is to make an individual vehicle a remote sense by collecting its location and speed. Collected data from a number of vehicles can be then processed to generate speed information of current network, thus identifying congestion. Floating vehicle data has been proven as one of the fastest growing applications of ITS since 2000. It has been proven as a cost effective means of travel time collection and congestion monitoring.
GPS based vehicle tracking devices have also been widely used for management and operation of fleet, e.g. taxi fleet or bus fleet. Such device allows an operator to monitor location and speed of each individual vehicle of a fleet, resulting better real-time management and a better planning in the future. However, from traffic data collection aspect, such vehicle tracking devices also make any equipped taxis or buses as floating vehicle which can used to collect traffic information.
It is no doubt that such new data sources would have positive impacts on overall traffic management and transport operation. However, the new data sources, as indicated above, are significantly different from traditional data sources. For example, one of typical traditional data sources is loop data which can provide speed and traffic flow at a fixed location while floating vehicle data can provide traffic speed along a road section but not at a fixed location. Quality of floating vehicle data can be various, that is also different from data collected by fixed traffic senses. Therefore, it is a huge challenge to integrate different data sources even though to integrate traditional traffic data with new data sources has a potential to improve overall understanding of traffic situation, thus achieving a better management and planning.
The VIAJEO project proposed an open platform concept to facilitate the integration of different data sources, thus maximising the benefits of traffic data. Such integration can be used to improve existing traffic management and operation, fleet management, traveller information services. It also provides opportunities for new type of transport and mobility services.
Importance of international cooperation
As explained above, the VIAJEO project aims at development of an open platform concept to facilitate the integration of different data sources. The implementation of the open platform has been done in four cities:
- Athens, Greece
- Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Beijing, China
- Shanghai, China.
This project is funded as a SICA project. The project has engaged two of the most important emerging market countries: Brazil and China. Several reasons led to the engagement. First, as emerging markets today are experiencing unprecedented economic growth, their transport and mobility needs are increasing, creating in consequence transport issues such as congestion, air pollution, greenhouse emissions and energy waste. These countries face severe challenges in providing transport solutions to support economic growth and meeting citizen's demand in mobility. The demand in mobility is significantly increased with the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) due to massive urban migration, increased income and car ownership. Although the emerging markets have invested significantly into transport infrastructure it has been recognised widely that building new infrastructure is not a sustainable solution to meet the increasing demand.
Secondly, the environmental and energy issues are global challenges and cannot be solved by a single country or region acting alone. Therefore, in the last few decades, to address the global challenges, stakeholders from Europe and the emerging markets have been developing cooperation. The EC had financed such cooperation through the FP6 and FP7). Previous EC-funded projects, such as SIMBA and SIMBA II, have created a solid ground for the VIAJEO project. SIMBA (2006 - 2008) and SIMBA II (2008 - 2010) projects have established contacts with relevant local stakeholders. Working together with local stakeholders, the SIMBA and SIMBA II projects identified priorities and common interests in a number of countries including China and Brazil. The two projects also created working groups and carried out gap analysis of research and development (R&D) needs. An example of cooperation in ITS is illustrated below. Traffic information services have been identified as one of the priorities to cooperate with Brazil and China. A R&D project with live demonstration was recommended by SIMBA and SIMBA II projects.
The scientific and technical objectives of the project are:
(a) the design of an open platform with interfaces to a wide range of mobility services;
(b) the implementation of the open platform in Europe, and in the emerging economies, i.e. China and Brazil;
(c) the validation of the open platform
(d) the assessment of social and transport impacts of the implementation and demonstration of the open platform.
Potential Impact:
The VIAJEO project have involved end users, traffic managers, public authorities, transport operators, equipment manufacturers, vehicle manufacturers, service providers, application and service developers, content owners and providers, and research organisations. The project started with review of existing systems and planned systems in the four demo cities. The project also assessed data availabilities for the project, taking into account data ownership and characteristics of data, e.g. coverage and quality. The project also reviewed standards used by current systems in the four demo cities and available European standards which can be applied to the project demonstrators. A user survey has been carried out in each of the four cities. Survey subjects included end users, transport operators and transport planners who have been foreseen as potential users of the VIAJEO demonstrators. The survey results have been used for a gap analysis to identify gaps between users' need and existing systems, thus system functionalities were proposed in order to meet user needs and fill the gaps.
Based on the defined functionalities and availability of data, an open platform was developed with a number of interfaces to access different types of data. The development of the open platform is based on existing platforms owned by the platform providers in the consortium, i.e. PTV and MIZAR. Both companies have commercial mobility platforms which were adapted following recommended standards, data formats and interfaces. After the development of the open platform, each of the four demo cities started its work on implementation of the open platform, connection of the open platform to existing data sources at the local level. Before the implementation, each demo site has finalised services to be demonstrated and functions of each service. The implementation followed requirements of demonstrators and characteristics of the local data.
After implementation, each demo site city carried out laboratory tests to verify if each module performs as expected. After the laboratory tests, demonstration at each demo site city started. During the demonstration period, data were collected to evaluate technical performance of the demonstrators and to assess if user needs have been made. The evaluation in the four demo site cities followed an evaluation plan. The evaluation plan defined evaluation methodology, and a number of indicators for the evaluation. Users' view and social impacts of the projects were collected and assessed through questionnaire surveys and focus group meetings.
In Athens, VIAJEO has implemented a comprehensive database that integrates floating cars, data from fixed measurements and historical traffic data, which has led to the development of a dynamic traffic assignment model for mobility management. More precisely, companies which are responsible for passenger transport such as taxi companies are able to provide better quality services to their customers, providing to the driver the best dispatch route based on real-time traffic conditions in order to reach customers preferable location accurately. End-users obtain real time traffic information, via mobile device or a website, which is valuable for their daily trips in order to avoid unexpected traffic situation. Finally, the processed data and related traffic indicators provide traffic planners and authorities with aggregated information about traffic and support them to estimate the status of transportation system in the city. Three services have been implemented within the VIAJEO open platform.
Service A: Taxi fleet management and traffic information: The aim of this service is to upgrade the management of the taxi fleet in the Athens site and alert the drivers on incidents that may affect the taxi service. At the end, the taxi drivers will be able to provide better quality services to their customers, while their daily operation will become more effective. The service contains two core functionalities:
(a) dynamic assignment and navigation;
(b) traffic alerts.
Service B: End user multi-modal trip planning and traffic information: The scope of this service is to facilitate the mobility of residents and visitors in their transportation and mobility in urban areas. The users of the service have access to a web portal, through which they can find alternative routes from an origin to a destination using several transit modes, while they can also obtain traffic information that may be useful for their trips. The same information is also accessible through mobile devices. The service contains two core functionalities:
(a) multi-modal real time trip planning;
(b) traffic information.
This service has been implemented as a web-based application developed under the URL: http://viajeo.myroute.gr
Service C: Observatory for public authorities and traffic planners: the objective of this service is to provide to all interested stakeholders aggregated information on the traffic conditions of the Attica region. The VIAJEO Observatory addresses the needs of transport and traffic planners for data that would allow them to gain a sound picture of the traffic and transport conditions in Attica and, thereafter, to develop a structured decision and policy making. The service contains two core functionalities:
(a) traffic content management;
(b) transport, traffic and accident related indicators.
This service has been implemented as a web-based application developed under the URL: www.viajeo.imet.gr
In São Paulo, the open platform collects floating vehicle data from probe vehicles to evaluate the concept and to highlight benefits and potential deployment issues. These data are integrated with existing data sources from the traffic control centre in the open platform in order to estimate real-time traffic condition. The real-time data are stored in a historical data base for purposes of statistical and prognostic analysis as well as for the computation of optimal routes for private cars. Precise traffic profiles are assigned to the road network of the demo area. Fleet operators can use the real-time information and historical database, which can be accessed through standardised interfaces, for better operation and management of their fleet (e.g. taxi). The real-time information and historical database are used to support a web-based journey planner which is able to plan a trip for private cars and commercial vehicles. The dynamic traffic information is disseminated through a traveller information website. On-board equipment is coupled with high band width communication link through the general packet radio service (GPRS) channel. Moreover the on-board units equipped for floating data collection opens up the opportunity for safety and security application with special emphasis on the EC's emergency standards and policies. Differing from other demo sites which focus on one urban area only, Brazil demo site covers also surrounding motorways. The open platform will access motorway traffic data via MIST platform which was developed by IPT and is currently used to collect traffic data on motorway networks from different operators. The architecture of the demo site is shown below.
In the figure above input data are:
(a) data sources for traffic data and travel time covering São Paulo's highway and main road network;
(b) floating car data (FCD) collected by a small fleet of private vehicles.
Outcomes from the VIAJEO open platform are:
(a) core functionalities for traffic management and route planning;
(b) business-to-business (B2B) interfaces for third parties service providers and traffic management centres;
(c) business-to-consumer (B2C) interfaces for end users (mobile application and website).
The VIAJEO project in Beijing aims to encourage usage of public transport, reducing pollution and traffic congestions, so improving passenger information service is one of the main tasks. The project in Beijing connected real time traffic data collected by GPS / GPRS equipped public transport vehicles (over 200 buses from 6 bus lines), taxis (20 000 taxis in Beijing) and private cars. The open platform integrates data from the different sources to get a real-time 'picture' of current traffic conditions and providing to the users a real-time multi-modal journey planner (pre-trip and on-trip), for private vehicles as well as for public transport travellers (using metro and bus transport services), a real-time 'picture' of current traffic conditions, and the real time bus arrival information on displays at bus stops (20 in the area of interest). In addition it provides to operators an integrated view of the real time public transport operation and management integrated with display of real time traffic information. Three services have been implemented within the VIAJEO open platform. Cross modal journey planning and real time traffic information (Service A) provides a web based interface to users for PC and mobile device; the user can view the current traffic status (coloured links showing the current travel speeds on roads) and he can perform a route planning from A to B.
Real-time bus operation (Service B) provides information about the real time public transport operations, including vehicle management, for details about the status of the vehicles and check of planned service and real time service with alerts in case of deviation, improving the efficiency of the public transport service.
Passenger information display (Service C) provides information on displays at bus stops, such as arrival/departure time information or specific messages.
The VIAJEO platform Shanghai connects the real time bus position system via SIRI interface to the expert web service system. Also available through the expert web system are the (historical) traffic data and the pollutant data calculated for each road link through the HBEFA emission modelling. The Shanghai test site has developed three services around the VIAJEO platform:
- Service A: Real time bus information.
- Service B: Real time traffic data access via SIRI and Web display module.
- Service C: Historical traffic data and environmental modelling.
Service A (Real-time bus information) provides bus arrival time displayed at bus stops. Two bus lines were equipped for the demonstrator. A total of 40 buses were equipped with on-board devices and readers. A total of 34 bus stops were equipped with reader and displays. The on-board device consists of GPS unit and ZigBee short range communication in order to enhance accuracy of positioning. Service B (Real-time traffic data access via SIRI and web display module) integrates inputs from Service A (Real-time bus position and forecast arrival time) and Service C (Traffic emission model data) and display them at a website through a SIRI standard interface. The environmental emission model data and the historic traffic data are added as pre-computed data to the data store, form which geographic information system (GIS) functions draw the data on request and present it on the website. Functionality of Service B is shown below. Service C (Historical traffic data and environmental modelling) aims at the estimation of the pollution from road traffic. The model is able to estimate NOx, PM, CO2, HC and CO and results of the estimated pollution level are displayed on the web platform. The model is developed based on the European Handbook of Emission Factors (HBEFA). To apply HBEFA in Shanghai, the HBEFA emission factors needed to be calibrated to the different vehicle composition in Shanghai. Chinese engine emission characteristics were assigned to the best corresponding European equivalent. For the vehicle composition, statistics on Shanghai vehicle registrations were researched in order to identify the most likely composition of engines found in Shanghai traffic. Historic traffic data on the examined roads were used as input to the emission estimation for certain traffic situations. Road traffic situations and driving patterns were matched. Thus the calculation could be executed.
List of websites: http://www.viajeo.eu
Contact details: info@viajeo.eu
