A tram-train system to connect the urban area of Cosenza to its province: A simulation model of transport demand modal split and a territorial analysis to identify adapted transit oriented development prospects

International audienceThe purpose of this paper is to study possible prospects of regional development and of public transport demand evolution, resulting in the implementation of a new tramtrain service to suburban and a tramway for urban area of Cosenza and Rende and for municipalities of Savuto valley, in the southern Italian region of Calabria. This is an area that in recent decades has seen significant phenomena of urban de‐population, with consequent problems of urban sprawl into neighbouring small cities and land consumption. The mobility system is heavily focused on the use of private cars as the main and often the only way to travel; causing obvious problems of traffic congestionand poor urban quality of life for citizens. The modern tramway system project, next to be realized, will connect the urban area of Cosenza and Rende with the University of Calabria. It is a first important structural intervention that will hopefully help to significantly increase public transport modal share and to promote implementation of Transit Oriented Development policies, properly adapted to that specific territory. The decision to adopt such a narrow gauge tramway line, allows to consider the prospect of actually integrating this service with a tramtrain system linking Rogliano and municipalities of Savuto valley, with the urban area, using existing narrow gauge railways of Ferrovie della Calabria (main regional train operators). With this purpose was developed a transport demand simulation model, using the Tranus system, to estimate the evolution of the transport demand modal split in that area, caused by such changes in the mobility system. Through a spatial analysis were showed bsome areas that might be interested by interventions of urban renewal and regeneration, with greater access to public transport services and Transit Oriented Development policies. Results of this analysis and the simulation model will be presented and discussed in detail in this paper

mobile systems applied to traffic management and safety a state of the art

Abstract Mobile systems applied to traffic management and control and traffic safety have the potential to shape the future of road transportation. The following innovations, that will be deployed on a large scale, could reshape road traffic management practices: – the implementation of connected vehicles with global navigation satellite (GNSS) system receivers; – the autonomous car revolution; – the spreading of smartphone-based systems and the development of Mobile Cooperative Web 2.0 which is laying the base for future development of systems that will also incorporate connected and autonomous vehicles; – an increasing need for sustainability of transportation in terms of energy efficiency, traffic safety and environmental issues. This paper intends to provide a state of the art on current systems and an anticipation of how mobile systems applied to traffic management and safety could lead to a completely new transportation system in which safety and congestion issues are finally properly addressed

comfort index ci bus a methodology to measure the comfort on board

Abstract The presented work deals with the important topic of assessing the quality of public transport services. This research specifically addresses the performance of the service in terms of comfort. In particular, the study focuses on the definition of a comfort index (CI) that takes into account two dimensions (noise and vibration) measured on board the buses studied, both during motion and on a stationary vehicle. The methodology interprets how users perceive the comfort on board the public transport considered, with numerical data coming from high-precision measuring instruments. This methodology represents a further element of synthesis in the complex quantification of perceptions by an individual, precisely because of the extreme subjectivity of judgment

the use of smartphones to assess the feasibility of a cooperative intelligent transportation safety system based on surrogate measures of safety

Abstract The future of road transportation is going to be shaped by connectivity and autonomous driving. Connected and autonomous vehicles are expected to increase safety and reduce traffic congestion. Once all the vehicles are connected and geo-localized there might still be a need to integrate a different level of autonomous vehicles on the road: from the human driven vehicle to the fully autonomous vehicle. While surrogate safety measures have been extensively considered to estimate the risk of accidents due to improper driving, there has been no attempt to use them to help drivers achieve a better driving style. This paper presents an experimentation on the idea to warn drivers when they are driving in such a way (owing to their interactions with other vehicles) that could potentially lead to an accident. In the proposed system the driver is warned of the risk of collision by the combined use of localization (GPS) gathered information and the application of road safety indicators such as Deceleration Rate to Avoid a Crash, Time To Collision and others. The experimentation involving car-following vehicles showed the feasibility, with existing technologies, of using surrogate measures of safety to assist the driver in keeping a better driving trajectory. Once connected vehicles are introduced on the market, the presented results can be a base to develop commercial smartphone applications that will allow users of "not connected" old vehicles to also take advantage of real time driving assistance for a safer use of the road

mobile for emergencies m4em a cooperative software tool for emergency management operations

Abstract In serious emergencies, as in the case of floods and extreme weather conditions, where a substantial number of people are involved and over vast areas which may also involve different provinces, currently civil protection planning carries on emergency management operations within rigid schemes. A procedure that would be capable of handling events acquiring data continuously and developing real time solutions in a highly flexible manner has not yet been proposed. This research focuses on how the systematization of information systems and communication processes can improve the management of emergencies caused by extreme weather and climate events. The objectives of improved service, levels of safety and sustainability of the intervention in emergencies would be obtained through a centralized decision support system. The system and tools that are presented in this paper aim to respond to emergency issues dynamically responding to the dynamics of the events by taking advantage of an information system capable of sharing data, notifications, service orders, appeals for help, information on the status of the transport network and any other information. The system would provide decision support by acquiring information from smartphones and other nomadic devices; it would so provide exchange of information in real time on one or more virtual platforms among stakeholders and between them and the citizens. Substantially, the system is based on smartphone applications coupled with a central management emergency Decision Support System specifically built to make best use of the possibilities offered by the latest telematics systems and cooperative web and phone-based tools

Co-operative ITS: ESD a smartphone based system for sustainability and transportation safety

Abstract Co-operative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) are emerging rapidly due to recent development in Global Navigation Satellite System GNSS systems and mobile internet. The main goal of these systems is to improve traffic conditions and safety level on the road networks. With the rapid growth of smartphone technologies and mobile internet, C-ITS based on smartphone may contribute increasingly in vehicle data collection and in traffic safety and sustainability issues. This paper, extending previous research results, explores the possibilities of using smartphone applications coupled with a central server GIS (Geographic Information System) web system to contribute to traffic safety and to reduce fuel consumption. The idea of a co-operative system in which GPS (Global Positioning System) enabled smartphones are capable to acquire individual vehicle's kinematics is extended to take into account both safety and fuel consumption issues. Information in the system is shared on a web server for promoting more sustainable and safe driving styles. The co-operative system allows drivers to examine information about their individual driving style and consumptions allowing a better use of the road. Road operators can use the system to find critical points on the network and to promote traffic safety

A Decision Support System based on Smartphone Probes as a Tool to Promote Public Transport

In the last few years, the increase in mobility has coincided with an ever greater use of an individual mode of transport. The causes of this situation are imputable not only to a growth in economic wellbeing, but also to an inadequate organization of public transport services that still represent a valid alternative to the car use only in sporadic cases. Recently the research community, local public administrations, national and federal governments focused their attention on methods and techniques able to promote the use of public transport, reducing energy consumption, pollution levels, congestion levels and road traffic. However, in order to make more effective all initiatives to promote public transport, a large amount of information about service network accessible to users is essential. Based on this assumption, this paper presents a Decision Support System that relies on a logical network architecture characterized by the communication paradigm REST and powered by the use, on Client side, of smartphones that today have an enormous social relevance. Key goals of a REST-based platform include scalability of components interactions, generality of interfaces, independent deployment of components and intermediary components to enforce security and reduce latency. Through the elaboration of a large amount of transportation systems and land use data (Server side) and an user-friendly interface on the client it is possible to simultaneously register users’ behavior on each trip they made (GPS sensors on smartphones allow the storage of the origin, the destination, the temporal window, the used mode of transport, the routes of the trips on the Server) and propose to users travel strategies alternative to car use. The Decision Support System is based on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) structure and it is characterized by interoperability of the entire set of data as well as support the independent Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services, such as Web Feature Services (WFS) and Web Map Services (WMS), in order to provide a series of spatial analysis web services via a spatial database back end, as well provide a basis to share spatial data with different data models and from different sources without data conversion

SPEED DIAGRAMS: AN UPDATED RELATIONSHIP FOR V85

Speed diagrams of rural roads are an essential tool for the good geometric road design, for the control, in existing roads, of the geometrical layout characteristics (visibility distances, coordination between successive elements, the climbing lane for the heavy vehicles). Again they can be used, with information to vehicle weights, to improve sizing of safety barriers. These operations can be successfully performed if it will increase the knowledge of the speed characteristics in road sections with greater accident risk. There are many studies realized on driver speed, in the last two decades; the resulting values and relationships are different from each other. Every Country has an its own relationship that characterizes the behavior of drivers in road environment: it is not possible to define a single formula for different situations and different drivers. In the paper, in particular, it describes an experimental relationship obtained of the distributions of running speeds of vehicles recorded, in significant periods of time, in different conditions of geometric path and different provinces. The surveys were conducted on various two-lane roads and have allowed to identify a good relationship for the dependence of the operating speed of the layout geometrical elements not only with the free flow speed (FFS, 85th-percentile) and the CCR (curvature change rate), but also with the road longitudinal gradient. It has used the measurements over 40 sections of rural roads with two-lane single carriageway, width greater than 7 meters, long straights and curvature radii greater than 100 meters. The roads are located in Italy, in the provinces of Grosseto, Caserta, Benevento, Cosenza and Naples, with different plan and elevation views of alignment. The environmental conditions of surveys have always been clear weather and daylight. The values obtained were interpolated with different relations and the results were compared with those obtained from other authors in the same geometric conditions