Bicycles, buses and trains are becoming more and more important in replacing the car as a means of transport and thus making cities attractive places to live. At the same time, smart systems are making traffic flow more freely.
In 2015, the US city of Phoenix, Arizona, launched a large-scale plan which will completely reshape its transport network. The city is going to be investing some 30 billion Dollars in the project over the next 35 years. The investment is aimed not only at enhancing quality of life in the city, but also at attracting well educated, socially aware young people to its downtown areas, thus also bringing new businesses, which will in turn generate more revenue through local taxes. “We were a Twentieth Century city that needed to attract Twenty-First Century economic development,” says Alan Stephenson, Director of Planning and Development for the City of Phoenix. “In order to be competitive, we needed to create places where employers would want to locate.”
The car is becoming less important
At the heart of the new transport philosophy is an acknowledgement of the fact that most millennials – the generation born between 1980 and 1999 – are looking to live in locations where cars are not a regular necessity. They want to live in densely populated urban neighbourhoods where they can go about their daily lives travelling mostly on foot, by bicycle, or using public transport. So for Phoenix, the first step is to create compact, mixed-use neighbourhoods close to existing light rail stations. It also needs to redesign its existing automobile-oriented transport network so as to also support other users, such as public transport services, cyclists and pedestrians.
Trains and buses delivering real-time data
The city’s public transport system is being thoroughly modernised to make it more efficient and reliable, and more easily accessible. To that end, the city’s buses and light rail trains are being fitted out with a new computerised operational control system. The system provides free Wi-Fi for all passengers. One of its key functions is also to collect data and transmit it to the traffic management centre. The data transmitted from the trains and buses includes the vehicles’ locations, safety-related data, passenger numbers, traffic information and operational data. In future, dynamic real-time passenger information will also be provided.
A Big Data pool
In order to converge the various transport projects, the city of Phoenix has launched a Big Data project which will incorporate data from all the individual areas. Analysis of this Big Data will enable services to be optimised and improve the efficiency of the city’s administration. As one example, fire department vehicles and ambulances will be able to utilise real-time traffic information from the traffic management centre to identify the fastest route to an emergency scene.
A “green wave” with intelligence
Cars will still predominate in providing mobility around cities for the foreseeable future at least. So making motor vehicle traffic run more efficiently is a core function of a Smart City. Generally accessible traffic data is key. The city of Darmstadt has also recognised that fact and has launched a first open data platform for traffic data. It serves as the basis for an app developed by the Urban Software Institute which makes the data available for the provision of public services, innovative transport applications for the private sector,and more far-reaching research projects. The information provided indicates the current traffic situation in Darmstadt. The data is recorded in real time by sensors on traffic lights around the city. This is a key factor in guiding traffic through traffic light cycles in a way which saves fuel and so helps to preserve the environment. More environmental data, including current CO2 levels, temperature or noise, could be recorded via measuring stations such as smart street lamps and likewise made available to the public at large and to businesses. “The idea of opening up previously unused traffic light data can serve as a domino effect in developing ever more wide-ranging applications, extending as far as helping to improve air quality and reduce climate damage for example,” comments Darmstadt’s Mayor and Economic Affairs Officer Jochen Partsch. “The benefits of improving traffic flows are still underestimated as an alternative to new road building. But where space is at a premium, it is mostly the only practicable solution.”