Increased urban traffic in European cities has resulted in chronic congestion, causing delays and pollution. As a result of this phenomenon, every year, nearly 100 billion Euros are lost, which represent 1% of the EU’s GDP. Furthermore, urban traffic is responsible for 40% of CO2 emissions and 70% of emissions of other pollutants arising from road transport. There is currently a real need for cities to come up with strategies to improve urban mobility and reduce energy consumption caused by transport.

THE PROJECT

Funded under the EC ICT Policy Support Program (ICT-PSP) In-Time is a Pilot B project aiming to address these challenges by implementing and piloting an ICT infrastructure in order to facilitate the deployment and delivery of Multimodal RTTI services for drivers and travellers in European cities. In-Time aim is to deploy and validate an innovative pan-European approach to Real Time Traffic and Travel Information (RTTI) services. This system will be largely based on ICT and ITS European standards, enabling the interoperability of information and services between local data/service providers, end-user Travel/Traffic Information Service Providers (TISPs)  and across European cities.

The delivery of multi-modal travel and traffic information services requires the access to and integration of various kind of data and services which are typically distributed across different systems, owned and operated by different authorities or service providers. Such systems may be individual systems or, eventually, systems providing already some level of integration of several local systems (e.g. Regional Data/Service Servers, RDSSs). Independent from the level of integration available in a site, a common situation in Europe is that access to local data and services is made difficult by the use of different data formats, standards, interfaces, implementation technologies, etc.

The In-Time technical goal is the design, implementation and pilot demonstration of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) providing business to business (B2B) services largely based on European standards to access local travel and traffic information and enabling the implementation and delivery of value-added, business to consumer (B2C) multimodal, Real-time Traffic and Travel Information (RTTI) services for European travellers and citizens.

Standard-based B2B services enable European-wide Travel and Traffic Information Service Providers (TISPs) to easily access traffic and travel data and services in the single area (city, region) via a harmonised, standardised and open interface. This enable TISPs to provide end-user multimodal RTTI services (B2C services)  accessible via mobile or navigational devices, which are interoperable across different content owners/systems and different geographical sites. B2C services have the potential to influence travel behaviour both in (1) the pre-trip phase, by allowing access to the complete and integrated multimodal information and taking environmental aspects into account and (2) on-trip, by providing suitable information based on traffic and transport conditions and events enabling the traveller to avoid congestion and bottlenecks and select alternative routes and/or alternative transport modes.

The In-Time solutions has been set up at 6 European pilot sites (Vienna, Brno, Bucharest, Oslo, Munich, and Florence) to ensure the easy access of real-time multimodal traffic data for external TISPs. This model ensures the easy access to all urban traffic related data within one region resulting in the distribution to the end-users via several consistent information channels and in parallel enhancing user acceptance.

During the pilot operation the individual traveller behaviour will be monitored with quantitative methods for data collection with a required minimum number of 150 test persons. On the basis of the traffic model elaborated, the effects of the behavioural change of the test persons and of the new traffic management technologies will be simulated and applied onto the full traffic system thus giving an insight into the global changes the In-Time scheme provides to the pilot site.

CONSORTIUM

A consolidated research group with a renowned academic and industrial profile.

• AustriaTech – Federal Agency for Technological Measures Ltd. (AT)
• Tele Atlas BV (NE)
• BRIMATECH Services GmbH (AT)
• Mizar Automazione S.P.A. (IT)
• Universitatea Politehnica din Bucuresti (RO)
• SINTEF Technology and Society (NO)
• ITS-Vienna Region (AT)
• ASFINAG Maut Service GmbH (AT)
• Telematix Software, a.s. (CZ)
• Fluidtime Data Service GmbH (AT)
• PTV Planung Transport und Verkehr AG (DE)
• ERTICO (BE)
• Swarco Futurit Verkehrssignalsysteme GmbH (AT)
• Brnìnské komunikace a.s. (CZ)
• ATAF spa (IT)
• algoWatt SpA (IT)
• micKS MSR GmbH (DE)
• Geo Solutions nv (BE)
• Österreichisches Forschungs- und Prüfzentrum Arsenal Ges.m.b.H. (AT)
• MemEx Srl (IT)
• Austro Control – Österreichische Gesellschaft für Zivilluftfahrt  (AT)