The first stage of the Territorial Roadshow in Naples in June was anopportunity to present a first urban mobility performancemeasurement model developed by OCTO and The European House – Ambrosetti and to assess how it has been adopted and the benefits for stakeholders: from citizens to city and business administrators, to the mobility ecosystem as a whole.
The next stage of the Roadshow took place in Florence on 4 July and saw 12 players from the mobility ecosystem of the city and the region of Tuscany, including universities, local businesses and public administrators, around the table.
Once again, the main objective of the Working Table was to share the state of the art of connected vehicle technologies, the possible adoption models in the different priority use cases of cities, and to present a new perspective of these technologies in support of the sustainability of cities. The OCTO and The European House – Ambrosetti’s mobility sustainability indicators dashboard isframed as an analysis tool to identify the needs of mobility demand at the urban level and of the adjacent territories, promoting opportunities for multidisciplinary confrontation necessary to have an integrated vision of development that is consistent with territorial plans and responds to citizens’ mobility needs.
Thanks to the adoption of connected and digital mobility technologies, it is now possible to monitor the effectiveness of actions introduced to improve the effects of mobility both through tools for the active involvement and participation of citizens and through data-driven governancemechanisms that enable new management models for urban ecosystems.
Thanks to millions of connected vehicles, for example, it is possible to pinpoint the time and location of accidents with extreme precision. This information allows urban mobility administrators to understand the areas at greatest risk, identify risk factors, and develop ad hoc actions to mitigate accidents. Real-time mobility mapping also makes it possible to monitor traffic flows, identify the times of day when congestion is greatest and take action to improve traffic flow.
The technology behind Connected Mobilityallows for a rethinking of urban mobility that can evolve from systems of ‘inhibiting access to restricted traffic areas’ to the possibility of flexibly managing access on the basis of individual needs and behaviour. As a result, more sustainable and democratic decisions can be taken that are no longer based on the type of car, but on the actual level of emissions produced and thus the driving style adopted.
During the Working Table in Florence, the opportunity to exploit the potential of data to support administrations in achieving the mobility objectives of the city of Florence, winner of the Maas for Italy call for tenders and ready to develop integrated mobility experimentation projects, was discussed.
For the purposes of the experimentation, the connected mobility data are able to support the city of Florence in launching Mobilty-as-a-Service(Maas) services, with theobjective of managing multimodal mobility within the urban context: private mobility within the city, Local Public Transport (LPT) and vehicle flows outside the city.
The data from the connected vehicles would also support the City in the creation of the road safety monitoring and management centre (Traffic Centre),inorder to improve readiness and speed of intervention. Connected vehicles are in fact able to communicate directly and in real timewith hospitals, providing information on the type of accident and reducing the estimated time of arrival of help.
The importance of ‘educating’ citizens in the conscious use of new technologies in such a way that they are equally accessible to all age groups of the population was also discussed. Widespread adoption is the conditio sine qua non for the implementation of a model for enhancing the greenhabits and behaviour of mobility users that generates appreciable results on society as a whole.
In order to exploit the potential of connected mobility data, the need to act on three lines of action emerged:
- Working together to complement public mobility data with data from private mobility;
- Integrating services available to private vehicles (green tickets or access to LTZs) as a service component of Mobility-as-a-Service(MaaS);
- Promoting the acceptance of new mobility systems by citizens, through a system of valorisation of virtuous behaviour and/or other forms of education to a virtuous driving style (social platforms with emulation of positive behaviour).
The culture of citizens and their propensity to use new telematic and city mobility management systems, in particular, will have to be addressed with targeted actions. It will be essential to overcome fears concerning privacyand the use of data in favour of growing trust in value-added services for citizens. To this end, it will be important to realise and disseminate success stories demonstrating the benefits enabled by connected mobility.
Among the benefits for citizens, OCTO’s technology provides coaching and mentoringto drivers, helping them to adopt a safer and more sustainable driving style. This leads to a lower risk of accidents, as well as a reduction in emissions and wasted petrol. The technology also makes it possible to reward citizens who adopt virtuous driving styles. Discounts on insurance or metro passes are just a few examples of incentive schemes.
Next stop of the OCTO and The European House – Ambrosetti Roadshows: Modena. The roadshow with city mobility stakeholdersin the realisation of the Italian Way to Connected Mobility continues.
Author:
The European House – Ambrosetti