Realistic cost estimation of an intelligent transportation system roll-out

What are the likely costs and implications of rolling out an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS)? Here, a team from Ghent University present a cost model which uses a set of possible technologies and applications which can be further tailored. A joint roll-out - instead of separate applications is investigated, alongside the reuse of existing infrastructure and identification of the most crucial parts of the system in terms of costs. The case of the Belgian highways is used as a practical example

Feasibility of expanding traffic monitoring systems with floating car data technology

Trajectory information reported by certain vehicles (Floating Car Data or FCD) can be applied to monitor the road network. Policy makers face difficulties when deciding to invest in the expansion of their infrastructure based on inductive loops and cameras, or to invest in a FCD system. This paper targets this decision. The provided FCD functionality is investigated, minimum requirements are determined and reliability issues are researched. The communication cost is derived and combined with other elements to assess the total costs for different scenarios. The outcome is to target a penetration rate of 1%, a sample interval of 10 seconds and a transmission interval of 30 seconds. Such a deployment can accurately determine the locations of incidents and traffic jams. It can also estimate travel times accurately for highways, for urban roads this is limited to a binary categorization into normal or congested traffic. No reliability issues are expected. The most cost efficient scenario when deploying a new FCD system is to launch a smartphone application. For Belgium, this costs 13 million EUR for 10 years. However, it is estimated that purchasing data from companies already acquiring FCD data through their own product could reduce costs with a factor 10

Haalbaarheid van dynamisch verkeersmanagement gebaseerd op gegevensuitwisseling tussen een verkeerscentrale en voertuigen

In theory data originating from vehicles can be applied to support dynamic traffic management. This concept is called Floating Car Data (FCD), and has been extensively studied for the past decade. The main advantage of an FCD system is that it allows coverage of an extensive area in a short amount of time. This is in contradiction with the approach of extending the classical sensing infrastructure based on inductive loops and cameras. The downside is that the FCD technology is less mature then the classical infrastructure. It is not clear if in reality a FCD system will be able to effectively provide the same services with the same quality as existing systems. The final cost and organizational approach of an FCD roll-out is also uncertain. Hence policy makers face difficulties when deciding rather to invest in the further expansion of the classical infrastructure based on inductive loops and cameras, or to invest in the roll-out of an FCD system. The goal of this report is therefore to provide well-founded insights in the feasibility of using FCD in the context of dynamic traffic management. In contradiction to many existing studies we will adopt a top down approach instead of a bottom up approach. Within this research context we aim to answer the following questions: What are the requirements for the FCD data? What is the required penetration rate? Which data should be part of the FCD samples? What is the sampling and transmission interval? Which functionality can be provided using this data? Are they different for the different types of roads (highway, arterial road, urban environment)? Are there reliability issues? What is the impact of the FCD system on the supporting mobile data network in case of high traffic concentrations? How much will the roll-out of an FCD system cost? How can the roll-out of an FCD system be organized best? To define an answer to these questions the report starts with an extensive literature study. From this study estimations can be derived regarding the first two groups of questions. However, they are not accurate enough. To further refine them a specially developed platform is utilized. This platform is based on microscopic traffic simulation. Concerning the last three groups of questions (impact on the mobile data network, cost, organization), no existing studies could be found in literature. To further research these questions several techniques are applied: an adjusted model for the determination of the load on a mobile data network that was developed in previous work, a specially developed cost model and a specially developed organizational model (so-called value networks). Based on the obtained results it can be concluded that it is best to aim for a FCD configuration with a penetration rate of 1% and a sampling rate of 10 seconds. Samples are first stored locally and contain accurate information regarding position and speed of the vehicle, and exact moment of sampling. Every 30 seconds an aggregate of 3 samples is then sent to the FCD server. During connection setup a security optimization is applied: the so-called SSL restart handshake. An FCD system as described above will be able to make accurate speed estimations in a highway environment. In this environment it will also be able to accurately determine the location of an incident and the tail of a traffic jam. On arterial roads and in urba

Realistic cost estimation of an intelligent transportation system roll-out

What are the likely costs and implications of rolling out an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS)? Here, a team from Ghent University present a cost model which uses a set of possible technologies and applications which can be further tailored. A joint roll-out - instead of separate applications is investigated, alongside the reuse of existing infrastructure and identification of the most crucial parts of the system in terms of costs. The case of the Belgian highways is used as a practical example

Løsninger og utfordringer for utøvelse av biomassekontroll i lakseoppdrett

Funn fra arbeidsområde 4 i forskningsprosjektet EXACTUS Denne rapporten dokumenterer forhold og begrensninger ved bruken av løsninger for biomassekontroll i lakseoppdrett, og baserer seg på funn i arbeidsområde 4 i forskningsprosjektet EXACTUS. Bruken av utstyret og utfordringer ved dette har blitt vektlagt. Teknisk dokumentasjon av utstyr, felttester og teknisk utvikling blir behandlet i andre rapporter og i andre deler av prosjektet. En oversikt over overordnede tema gis i kapittelet Biomassekontroll som omfatter biomassekontrollens overordnete betydning, ulike anledninger for kontroll gjennom produksjonssyklusen og hvilke systemer som benyttes for "bokforing" og rapportering. Biomassekontroll omfatter både kontroll over antallet, og kontroll med snittvekt og vektfordeling. I kapitlene Antallskontroll og Vektestimering beskrives henholdsvis telleoperasjoner og vektestimering i settefiskanlegg, matfiskanlegg og brønnbåter, mens slakteri omtales i et eget kapittel. Rapporten avsluttes med en diskusjon rundt temaene nevnt ovenfor, og anbefaler ulike tiltak for å forbedre presisjonen ved dagens biomassekontroll.Norges forskningsrådpublishedVersio

Value-added services for fibre to the home: market potential, time horizons and user groups

Currently, telecom operators are developing large-scale projects in the internet broadband sector in cooperation with utility companies and public institutions. The roll-out of fibre to the home network infrastructure is often justified by the supposed increasing user demand for high-bandwidth applications. Starting from a user-oriented perspective, however, it is important to consider the utility of fibre networks for future users and to explore those killer applications that can convince end-users to migrate from their current connections to high-bandwidth networks. By means of an international expert survey, this paper tries to identify value-added services that benefit from fibre’s network potential in terms of high speed, symmetry and low delay. In contrast to initial expectations, video delivery applications were found less convincing by the experts whereas health monitoring, online content storage and management services, and desktop sharing were identified as the most promising fibre applications. In terms of timing, content storage and management systems and desktop sharing are identified as more market-ready than health monitoring applications. Whereas the health monitoring and desktop sharing are mainly seen as a service only for the consumer and business market respectively, content management systems are considered useful for business as well as for consumer purposes