The In-Time newsletter Intelligent and efficient travel management for European cities Issue 2 - January 2011
IN-TIME GOES PUBLIC It’s time for greener moving! To support travellers in reaching this goal, the In-Time project was started 1.5 years ago. By providing travellers with intermodal real time traffic information before as well as on their journey, In-Time enables travellers to make a better choice of routes and means of transport and gives alternatives in real time in case of traffic events and incidents. By doing so a promotion of public transport with a reduction of energy consumption is expected. A milestone in Traffic Service Provision has been reached by In-Time. Six European cities – Brno, Bucharest, Florence, Munich, Oslo and Vienna – are InTime project members; on their transport network In-Time will be rolled out and piloted. During the last couple of months the In-Time Interface, developed on the basis of European standards, was implemented in these cities, providing static and real time traffic data and services on different modes of transport. This interface enables Traffic Information Service Providers (TISPs) – In-Time partners Fluidtime (i-phone), Geo Solutions (Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0 or higher), and Telmap (Nokia S60 3rd edition) – to take and understand data and services from all test sites and provide processed routing and web feature services to their users.
First public live demonstration of In-Time Services in Vienna The In-Time public event, 25 January 2011, is hosted by the city of Vienna and denotes a critical milestone in the project: the development and implementation phase of the In-Time system has been finished, and the test series on the streets and in vehicles, carried out by hundreds of test users and surveyed by the In-Time partners, can start. This public event presents In-Time to stakeholders and authorities, to technical and research companies and institutions, to the ITS community and to other cities, and, above all, to potential followers. The concept, structure and technical details, as well as the “In-Time follower package” for cities and TISPs, are shown and presented at that event.
Testing and using In-Time The pilot cities will attract hundreds of test users, who will test In-Time for free on their different mobiles. A so-called “landing page” on the In-Time website: http:// www.in-time-project.eu/en/test_users/ guides them in their native language and, additionally, in English through the registration process. Evaluation, improvement, and then: please follow us! During the one year test period, test users answer questionnaires about changes in their travel In this Issue: behaviour and experience with the In-Time page 2 Launch agenda services. These questionnaires will be evaluated page 3 In-Time video and will help to improve the services. Follower page 4 Weather in In-Time cities and TISP are invited to take part in In-Time. page 6 In-Time Forum After the finalisation of the project, In-Time shall page 7 Florence and will live on, becoming a European standard in Traffic Service Provision, helping travellers to move greener! 1.
goes public
Time for greener moving 09.30 10.30 11.00
Registration and Coffee Opening ceremony and introduction
11.00 11.30
Demonstration breakfast
11.00 11.30
Guided press tour
11.30 12.45
In-Time explained
12.45 13.45 13.45 15.30
Lunch In-Time examined
15.30 16.00
In-Time participation
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Close and networking drinks
Bernhard Engleder (City of Vienna) Martin Boehm (In-Time Coordinator AustriaTech) - In-Time concept In-Time Partner stands with demonstrations: FluidTime, GeoSolutions, TelMap, Mizar, Micks, ITS Vienna Region, AustriaTech, Softeco, AustroControl Martin Boehm (In-Time Coordinator, AustriaTech), Bernhard Engleder (City of Vienna) Data collection and services, Johann Kickinger (ITS Vienna Region) Florence and the In-Time concept, Saverio Gini (MemEx) and Andrea Ferrari (ATAF) Analysis of Traveller Behaviour and Environmental Impact, Wolfgang Ponweiser (AIT) Buffet lunch provided The In-Time interface, Marco Boero (Softeco) The In-Time registry, Marco Boero (Softeco) End User solutions • Michael Kieslinger (Fluidtime) • Vincent Maenhaut (GeoSolutions) • Rafi Cohen (TelMap) The In-Time roadmap, Martin Boehm (AustriaTech) The In-Time follower package, Michele Masnata (Softeco)
Moderator: Henry Wasung (ERTICO) When? 25 January 2011, 09:30-16:00 Where? Techgate Vienna, Donau-City-Str. 1, 1220 Vienna, Austria Attendance is free of charge - registration required http://www.in-time-project.eu/en/events/
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The In-Time project is co-financed by the European Commission Competitiveness and Innovation (CIP) programme.
In-Time promotional video launched! The In-Time promotional video is now available! Launched to coincide with the In-Time launch event on 25 January 2011, the video tells the story of Rebecca, both with and without the In-Time services! Watch the In-Time video on the In-Time website: www.in-time-project.eu/
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Dynamic Traffic Weather Information in In-Time ...increases safety and decreases environmental impact Adverse weather conditions are a major cause of accident and traffic jams, which apart from causing human distress also lead to high economic costs. Not only in winter, but also in summer, critical weather situations like aquaplaning on roads, heavy thunderstorms, hail etc. lead to severe traffic situations. On-line and on-trip information, as well as warnings, help to mitigate the effect of adverse weather, enhancing safety and mobility. In the Munich area under the framework of the Bavarian traffic information agency, a weather information service operation platform provides traffic related road surface and weather condition information with a high location resolution based on digital map links. The event driven TMC messages are available as Service 15 “Dynamic Weather Information” on the In-Time common agreed interface (CAI) through the Munich RDSS. Under the framework of the In-Time CAI specification work, which is based on the e-MOTION data model, future enhancements are already defined. Future enhancements will focus on the provision of weather forecasts, information about the impact of forecasted critical weather situations on traffic and weather influence on different modes of traffic, like aviation, railway etc.
Weather impacts on safety Weather incidents like thunderstorms and strong showers, fog, chilling humidity, and snowfall represent serious safety risks on roads. Local thunderstorms will inevitably lead to a prolongation of travel time and also cause environmental impact. Appointments cannot be kept; individual stress and the risk of accidents are rising. Slippery road surface conditions caused by rain, snow and ice play a vital role in about 30 % of all accidents within Germany and similar situations are discovered in other European countries. The Finnish Road Administration encountered that the accident rate under snowy conditions is in principle two times higher than on bare, dry roads. But the risk of accidents is even 10-30 times higher if a critical road condition like snow or ice occurs unexpectedly. This risk can be reduced by accurate, road related warnings of unfavourable weather and road conditions. Road weather information systems became more and more indispensable and important for supporting winter maintenance decisions. Winter maintenance decision support makes the highest demands on the quality and range of measurements, information and forecasts. This highly sophisticated data are also used for traveller and traffic information. The futur aim is to combine and process the different sources of data. They are supplied by stationary road weather stations, mobile spontaneously transmitted data out of moving vehicles “XFCD”, grid patterned periodical data on precipitation radar, area- or local-weather forecasts, etc. in a way that reliable information on road weather conditions can be gained for short road sections or other points of interest. 4.
The Weather Service Operation Platform Starting in 2004 a road weather information platform was first developed by micKS MSR GmbH with the support and cooperation of the BMW Group FIZ and also in cooperation with the T-Traffic company ddg GmbH. Under the framework of the Bavarian Traffic Information Agency an enhanced weather information platform was built up and has now been continuously operated since 2008 (figure 1).
figure 1 Structure of Dynamic Weather Information Data Service
figure 2 BayernInfo and RDSS provides locally high resolved weather road condition information
This service operation platform is able to process different meteorological and road weather data sources (like road sensors, weather stations, precipitation radar data etc.), which also can have various time and geographical references and producing TMC coded warnings and messages referenced to short road sections based on digital map links or TMC locator. The fusion of various data sources is achieved by a knowledge base. In the In-Time project the regional data/ service server (RDSS), operated by PTV, collects all available information and provides static and dynamic traffic and weather information data as well as journey planning services. The public BayernInfo (www.bayerninfo.de) Service provides 15 minute-updated traffic related weather road condition information on Bavarian Highways (figure 2). Warnings and information about severe traffic situations are provided in summer as well as winter (figure 3).
Continuous improvement
figure 3 locally narrow bordered heavy rain event was automatically detected and observed by a car
Future enhancements of the weather information platform focus on the improvement of high locally resolved forecast of weather situations and the expansion of traffic related weather and environmental conditions for different modes of transportation, as train, aviation etc. It is not enough to know how the weather will be in the future; you have to know how exactly it influences the traffic (figure 4). The current work focuses on the complete modelling of the impact of different weather situations on traffic flow. On individual traffic on roads, for example, the key parameters are visibility and tire friction and their dependency on certain weather data. Output values are the maximum velocity, travel time of the road segment and also traffic model parameter.
figure 4 – illustration: modelling of weather impact on traffic flow
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First In-Time Forum
Intertraffic 2010, Amsterdam, 25/3/2010 The first In-Time Forum took place on the morning of Friday, 26 March 2010 at the Intertraffic 2010, Amsterdam. High level participants from industry and service providers and city and regional representatives had the opportunity to critically examine the In-Time project’s achievements and aims, the technical solutions to be deployed and the progress and models of the six In-Time Pilot cities - Brno, Bucharest, Florence, Munich, Oslo and Vienna. The overall objective of the Forum was to present the In-Time project to interested parties including city and regional representatives vital for the post-project success of In-Time, and to gather feedback before the launch of the pilot phase (May 2010). The event opened with introductions from Eva Boethius (DG INFSO) and Eric Kenis (DG MOVE) and a project overview from Gerald Lamprecht (Project Coordinator AustriaTech) before moving on to the InTime “marketplace”. The “marketplace” allowed participants to break off into fluid groups in order to focus on their areas of interest in the In-Time project. “Marketplace stalls” were dedicated to why and how a city would participate or follow the project, the technical aspects of In-Time and the overall concepts of In-Time.
Working groups
In-Time challenges
The participants were then divided up into four working groups to analyse and provide feedback of and for the In-Time project. Useful and stimulating discussions ranged over legal or regulatory aspects, add-on services, system architecture and the boundaries of services and policy and community generated content. Martin Boehm (Project Coordinator, AustriaTech) said “The feedback provided vital and highly targeted information which will enable us to fine-tune the InTime project in accordance with the realities and needs of stakeholders”.
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Martin Boehm explaining traffic management solutions for reduced energy consumption
In-Time in Florence A world-wide renown historical city, Florence is at the centre of a vast conurbation comprising of Florence, Prato, Pistoia and other eight smaller surrounding towns with a total 1.5 million inhabitants. Characterised by a very old cultural and economical history and with a huge tourist flow during the whole year (over 4.2 million tourists in 2010), Florence is permanently facing mobility and accessibility challenges. Moreover, in the last decades, like in many European cities, there has been a strong phenomenon of migration from Florence inner centre to the surrounding municipalities, thus increasing mobility needs inside the area. This has further increased the demand for private mobility, leading to the current modal split: 60% cars, 30% public transport and 10% other modes (bikes and pedestrians). The response to such problems has been continuous improvement of public transport as well as information and mobility services. Today, a number of ITS and mobility management systems are operating in the Florence metropolitan area, including: a Traffic Management Centre controlling over 100 main junctions, over 100 CCTVs for traffic monitoring, 15 on-street dynamic information panels (VMS); an AVM system operated by ATAF, controlling over 400 buses and providing real-time passenger information at stops and on-board; automated Access Control System for 5 limited traffic zones and the pedestrianised inner centre, with 25 automated gates providing vehicle identification, classification and violation detection/enforcing; a Parking Management System providing real-time information (free spaces) and guidance in relation to 14 major car parks in the city centre, for a total amount of about 4000 available slots.
Taking Chances
It is in this overall context that Florence joined the In-Time pilot project with the aim of
demonstrating advanced, multi-modal RealTime Travel and Traffic Information services (RTTIs), assessing user acceptance and the potential of In-Time services to improve the modal split by favouring increased use of public transport and lowered energy consumption in urban travel. The Florence pilot area consists mainly of the urban area and inner centre, even if some services are extended to a large part of the metropolitan area, covering a surface of about 100 km2. Local data and services are made available to In-Time services via the In-Time B2B Commonly Agreed Interface (CAI) by a number of participating systems and stakeholders (see box) In-Time B2B CAI systems and stakeholders • ATAF, the Florence public transport service company; • Firenze Parcheggi, the local parking services company; • the Municipality of Florence, providing information about events affecting mobility (e.g. road-works, closures, deviations, etc.) via ATAF information services; • TomTom, providing mapping and geocoding services through their LBS Platform; • Softeco Sismat, implementing and operating the local In-Time server (B2B CAI); • MemEx in supporting ATAF in all the systems and demonstration operation. The local In-Time B2B CAI Server ensures connection to and integration of the relevant local data and service sources. Overall, the following local data and services are accessible via the In-Time CAI: • Parking information service, including static and dynamic information such as location, prices, real time free spaces, etc., related to 14 parking areas; • Public Transport information service, including, for each stop of ATAF bus network, static information (e.g. timetables) as well
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as real-time dynamic data, such as predicted bus departure times at stops, based on live services data supplied by 400 buses and a new tramline; Public Transport journey planning services, the ATAF JP service named “Bus Bussola” providing bus network data and supporting travel planning using ATAF bus lines in the Florence metropolitan area; Road Traffic information service, including road works and traffic alerts, accessing data generated by Florence Municipality and ATAF operators; POI information service, based on ATAF JP services as well as Tom Tom LBS platform contents.
Overall, the In-Time CAI provides a standardised, B2B access interface to a geographically distributed set of data and service sources. Figure 1 provides an overview of the In-Time technical set up in Florence. The technological solution is based on the open source environment GeoServer (v2) providing OCG compliant Web Map Services (WMS) and Web Feature Services (WFS). In addition, specific web services have been developed to enable access to services available via existing web interfaces (e.g. ATAF journey planning service). In both cases, adaptation to local data is achieved through a mapping scheme between the existing (local) data model and the standard data model adopted in the CAI, based on XSDs and WSDL schema provided as part of In-Time CAI specifications. Services are offered to third-party applications as WFS/WMS through standard HTTP Get/Post requests.
In-Time end-user services Like in all other In-Time pilot cities, end user services are based on local data accessed via the In-Time B2B CAI and are provided by TISP mobile applications offered by GeoSolutions, Fluidtime and TelMap.
journey planning services as well as information services related to public transport (stop locations and expected departure times of buses), parking services (parking locations and free spaces), traffic event information (e.g. roadworks, closures, diversions, etc.), POI information. Powered by Softeco’s miXer™ technology, this application is an example of an In-Time compliant service delivery platform which, thanks to an interface with the InTime B2B CAI, is able to access and display not only data and services available in Florence, but also in all other pilot sites providing an In-Time CAI enabled access to local data and services. In-Time piloting in Florence is on the way. It is expected to provide fundamental inputs as regards the assessment of RTTI and end-user services aiming at influencing modal shift and enhancing the use of public transport, reducing energy consumption and the negative impacts of car travels in Florence area. In-Time pilot is also expected to provide valuable, assessed results in terms of technologies and enabling standards to improve the deployment and operation RTTI and navigation services in Florence Metropolitan Area and in the Tuscany Region more in general. The Province of Florence and the Region have undertaken important initiatives including: the developing regional Spatial Data Infrastructure (GIMI, i-Mobility project) for on-line exchange, sharing and use of transport and traffic related information (e.g. real time public transport and traffic information) in the whole Tuscany Region; the new regional, multi-modal journey planner, providing co-modal travels in the whole regional territory; the new traffic and transport supervisor of Florence Province (ELISA project). As such, the piloting of technologies and the underlying open standards adopted in the InTime B2B CAI are expected to provide relevant results and indications which will be exploited also in the context of such initiatives.
The Fluidtime application, for instance, provides a multi-modal Journey Planning and navigation service running on the iPhone. The application is available on the Apple Store and can be found in iTunes by searching for “In-Time”. The GeoSolutions application includes park and ride capabilities, combining car routing towards parking facilities with local Public Transport Journey planning to reach the final destination. Finally, pre-trip access to local information and services is also provided by a web application developed by Softeco allowing end users to use 8.
figure 1 In-Time set-up in Florence