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In-Time Project

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Acronym of the case:

In-Time

Web address of the case:

http://www.in-time-project.eu/en/welcome.htm

Country of the case:

Austria , Belgium , Czech Republic , Germany , Italy , Netherlands , Norway , Romania

Posting Date:

8 December 2011

Last Edited Date:

19 December 2011

Author:

Gerald Lamprecht (AustriaTech)
tags

energy consumption | Multimodal real-time traffic | travel information

In-Time Project LogoGerald's picture
Editor's Choice 2011

Type of initiative

  • Project or service-imgProject or service

Case Abstract

In-Time (Intelligent and Efficient Travel management for European Cities) focuses on Multimodal Real Time Traffic and Travel Information (RTTI) services with the goal to reduce drastically energy consumption in urban areas across the different modes of transport by changing the mobility behaviour (modal shift) of the single traveller. In-Time provides mainly 3 services: Business-to-business services will enable European-wide Traffic Information Service Providers (TISPs) to get access to regional traffic and travel data and services of the single pilot cities via a harmonised standardised open interface. This will enable the TISP to provide interoperable and multimodal RTTI services (e-services) to their end-users. E-services will influence the on-trip travel behaviour by optimising journeys taking the energy consumption into account. The community will be the users of mobile devices or navigational devices. Web based interoperable and intermodal pre-trip information will be provided by the pilot operators and has the potential to influence the travel behaviour in the trip planning stage by taking environmental aspects into account. The typical users are persons that are planning an urban trip on short term. Central part of the In-Time concept is an interoperable and multimodal Regional Data/Service Server (RDSS) which can be seen as a service-oriented middleware infrastructure providing a number of data/services, covering individual traffic, public transport, weather, location based services, intermodal transport planning, and enables the operation of the In-Time services The In-Time solution with the commonly agreed standardised interface will be set up at 6 European pilot sites 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.

Description of the case

Domain
eGovernment
Topic
Services for Citizens | High Impact Services with Pan-European Scope | Infrastructure | Multi-channel Delivery | User-centric Services
Sector
Communication (infrastructure) | Environment
Start date - End date
March 2009 (Ongoing)
Target Users
Citizen | Civil society
Scope
Pan-European
Status
Operation
Language(s)
English

Policy Context and Legal Framework

The most important action plans and policies formulated by the EU and stressed by In-Time are:

  • White Paper on European transport policy for 2010: The white paper stressed the problem of congestion in urban environments and the need for the integration of transport for a sustainable development. It proposed some 60 specific measures, one of which is developing high-quality urban transport. The subsequent mid-term review confirmed the urgent need for complementary action at national, regional and local levels and shifts of more environmentally friendly modes in urban areas and co-modality for the optimal and sustainable utilisation of resources.
    White Paper
    Mid-term Review
  • i2010 - A European Information Society for growth and employment: In-Time addresses one of the three initial priorities of ICT initiatives: clean transport addressing environmental and safety issues arising from increased road use. It also supports the creation of a Single European Information Space and makes ICT products more accessible by creating standard platforms that allow easy implementation.
    i2010 strategy
  • Green Paper - Towards a new culture for urban mobility: In-Time also supports the green paper's goals by optimising the use of various modes of transport and supporting "co-modality" between different modes and collective and individual transport. In-Time helps to find answers by providing information to optimise trip planning and making better use of the infrastructure through co-modality (challenge 1), fewer emissions (air and noise) through fewer congestions and better use of the existing infrastructure (challenge 2), and availability of user-friendly, adequate and interoperable multi-model trip information for planning a journey and improved exchange of data (challenge 3).
    Green Paper
  • INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC: One important aspect of In-Time is the interoperability between modes as well as between geographical regions. For this reason, when setting up the pilots, In-Time will consider standards already existing or currently under discussion under the INSPIRE Directive.
    INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC
  • Greening Transport: Five major negative impacts of transport were identified in the communication: climate change, local pollution, noise pollution, congestion and accidents. In-Time contributes to the reduction of all of these where the use of ICT leads to modal change and traffic reduction through improved information.
    Greening Transport
  • ITS Roadmap: In-Time addresses three challenges identified in the outline of the ITS
    Roadmap: reducing congestion and optimising use of existing capacity, increasing traffic safety, and reducing the negative impact on the environment while increasing energy efficiency and reducing the dependency on fossil fuels.
    ITS Roadmap
  • A European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (Set-Plan): The target of this plan is to reduce green-house-gases (GHG) by 20% by 2020 and to use 20% renewable energy sources in the EU energy mix, and to reduce GHG-remissions by 60-80% by 2050. Fully harnessing the potential for information and communication technologies and organisational innovation is stressed.
    Set-Plan
  • Green Paper - A European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy: This paper fosters fuel efficiency of cars, and the improving of the efficiency of urban, rail, maritime and aviation transport systems, as well as changing transportation behaviour. Co-modality will result in an optimal utilisation of resources, including energy.
    Green Paper
  • Action Plan for Energy Efficiency: The transport sector accounts for almost 20% of total primary energy consumption. 98% of the energy consumed in this sector is fossil fuel. It is essential to realise the potential for energy efficiency gains in this sector. These potentials can be achieved, in particular by ensuring among others by improving the efficiency of the transport systems, and by changing transportation behaviour.
    Action Plan

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative
IT infrastructures and products
Overall Implementation approach
Partnerships between administration and/or private sector and/or non-profit sector
Technology choice
Proprietary technology
Funding source
Public funding EU
Project size
Implementation: €1,000,000-5,000,000

Implementation and Management Approach

The long-term impacts of the In-Time project will be generated in the four following categories: traffic impacts, environmental impacts, economy impacts and socioeconomic impacts on society as a whole.

Traffic

In-Time services will strongly contribute to the EU objectives of improved safety, energy efficiency, emissions reduction, comfort and sustainability of transport.
The efficiency of urban transport systems will be significantly improved with the adoption of In-Time piloted end-products, not only because In-Time is expected to improve considerably travel times but also due to the effect of In-Time on traffic homogenisation and congestion prevention in individual road traffic and by making modal shifts and intermodal journeys more attractive. This will have a significant impact on travel times and fuel consumption.
In-Time will help to increase travel safety through the expected reduction in road-congestion - drivers' stress due to congestion, stop-and-go traffic and related delays contributes to the increased accident risks.
Finally, travel information provided to the drivers will allow them to have actual door-to-door travel information by accessing extra information such as time tables of the public transport, real-time public transport information, accidents/incidents/road works including deviations, parking systems and vacancies, etc.

Environment

The mentioned changes in the mobility behaviour will decrease the negative impacts of road traffic on the environment. In this context the term environment means both the road network and natural environment:

  • There will be less congestion on the road network, leading to enhanced traffic safety. In parallel In-Time will influence the selection of the travel mode by supporting urban traffic management to disseminate current travel data and services to the single traveller.
  • A major impact will be on the natural environment by reducing
  • pollutants and CO2 emissions
  • particle emissions
  • noise, etc.

The use of modern traffic management equipment will also contribute to a drastic reduction of energy consumption. This reduction will be achieved by optimising traffic control (Eco-flow), enhancing the product life-cycle, and by reducing power consumption by using LED technologies. The reduction on energy consumption of traffic management will be measured in the City of Bucharest, where in 2007 the installation of a new traffic control system started, which will be fully operational in 2009. Already in 2006 traffic data and environmental data have been collected to have a "before" status. In the pilot the "after" status will be collected and compared with results coming from the other In-Time pilot cities.

Economy

There are various aspects in which In-Time may have a positive impact on growth, employment and working conditions:

  • Direct job creation
  • Quicker and safer accessibility of workplaces
  • Increased competitiveness that will result from improving accessibility and environmental quality.

The most direct, albeit limited, job creation effect will come from the increased implementation and operation of intermodal traveller information systems within the project. A more substantial number of jobs in the telematics industry may be created, if the successful pilots encourage further urban traffic information operators to enhance their existing systems.
From the employers' point of view, In-Time services and the resulting decrease in congestion could reduce the running costs of their businesses by cutting costs of their deliveries and distribution of their products. This would improve their competitiveness in the market and therefore have a positive impact on local economies.
The In-Time end products and pilot results will definitely help towards world leadership in Europe's industry in the area of intermodal traveller information systems and the expansion to new emerging economies and markets. Here, leading industry partners are project participants and will deploy generated know how into new products.
Also, it is worth noticing that the impact of In-Time towards common pan-European architecture and standards for intermodal ITS systems will enhance competitiveness on world markets.

Society as a whole

In-Time will also have a positive impact on new targets for efficiency and environmental friendliness in Europe's transport sector through new mobility services. A very important impact should stem from the reduction of congestion resulting in noise reduction and less air pollution. Asthma and other respiratory diseases have become a major issue over recent years, both among adults and children who live in polluted cities. A major part of this pollution is transport related.
Noise and air pollution are regarded as one of the main drawbacks of "life in the metropolitan areas" and is one of the major reasons for urban sprawl and return to the countryside, a move which then generates even more traffic. Any reversal or slowing of this trend will help in the preservation of the countryside, and therefore enhance everybody's quality of life.
Furthermore, difficult journeys to work create stress, absenteeism and reduce productivity at work, as well as having a harmful impact on family life and social interaction. Again, improvements in the travel conditions and travel comfort for commuters will help to reduce such negative effects.

Impact, innovation and results

Impact

In-Time is a response to the European ICT PSP second call for proposals 2008, addressing Objective 2.2 ICT - for adaptive urban transport management infrastructure and services.

The main focus of In-Time will be with Multimodal Real Time Traffic and Travel Information (RTTI) services provided to drivers and travellers with the goal to reduce drastically energy consumption in urban transport, resulting in:

  • Less pollution, including CO2 emissions, particle emissions and noise
  • Less traffic congestion
  • Less energy consumption
  • A shift away from individual transport towards public transport
  • Responsive and adaptive traffic management

It is expected that travel behaviour of the single citizen will change with the use of In-Time services. During the pilot operation, individual traveller behaviour data will be collected with quantitative methods with a required minimum number of 150 test persons, thus giving an insight into the global changes expected.

Pre-trip information


Web-based interoperable and intermodal pre-trip and on-trip information will result in optimised journeys for the traveller, who will be informed about the different transport possibilities - including different modes.

"Pre-trip information is already an important contribution to sustainable mobility" (Final Report of the eSafety RTTI WG), but has in many cases the disadvantage that a door-to door trip planning taking different modes into account is currently impossible. This is a result of isolated systems that are operated by single operators with no or only reduced interaction to systems of parallel operators. So the operator of train-services can provide information about his network, but he has only limited access to other infrastructure operators, like road operators for the individual traffic situation.

The new approach within In-Time will ensure that each pilot side will have complete travel information (public and individual traffic) combined and interpreted at one location - the Interoperable and Multimodal In-Time Regional Data/Service Server (RDSS).

The RDSS will be operated by a regional operator, either an existing operator or a newly established one. This approach ensures that the user gets accurate and precise door-to-door information on the current travel times within the city, including alternative routes and alternative modes to be used. The setup of the RDSS will give also the possibility for a seamless transition of data and services between the single regions that result in interoperable cross-border travel information. It is expected that this service will facilitate inter-modal changes, thus attracting travellers to less energy consuming transport modes.

On-trip information

eServices are delivered by an established European TISP (Traffic Information Service Providers)  to the traveller and will provide seamless multi-modal Real-time Traffic and Travel Information by using a high performing and innovative traffic management infrastructure. This e-service might be provided via a navigational device or a smart phone to the end-user, who could then avoid congestion and bottlenecks, select alternative routes and/or alternative transport modes.


In the exploitation phase the e-services will be operated and delivered to the end-user by a TISP who will fine-tune the service according to the needs of the individual consumer (e.g. adaption for elderly and disabled people etc.). The operation of the e-service is possible by the operation of the described RDSS via the harmonised agreed standardised open interface. So, as soon as the TISP agrees on the terms of use, he has easy access to the RDSS who will provide traffic and travel information for the whole region. One key aspect, besides the technical approach, is the high quality and relevance of the data that will help to increase the user acceptance and result in modal shifts and reduced energy consumption.

Traffic Management/Operation

The use of modern traffic management equipment will also contribute to a drastic reduction of energy consumption. This reduction will be achieved by optimising traffic control (Eco-flow), enhancing product life-cycles, and by reducing power consumption by using LED technologies. The reduction on energy consumption of traffic management will be measured in Bucharest, where in 2007 the installation of a new traffic control system started, which will be fully operational in 2009. Already in 2006 traffic data and environmental data have been collected to have a "before"-status. In the pilot the "after"-status will be collected and compared with results coming from the other In-Time pilot cities.

Track record of sharing

The In-Time services will be piloted and operated in following European cities:

Vienna
Brno
Munich
Bucharest
Oslo
Florence

All pilot cities have agreed to set up the RDSS for the distribution of interoperable intermodal real-time Traffic and Travel Data to a European TISP. This ensures that the European TISP will be able to offer the same intermodal service within all pilot cities with a total amount of more than 8.6 million inhabitants. All In-Time services will be tested in real life for at least one year.

Lessons learnt

This field will be completed by the project's responsible when the lessons learnt have been identified and understood.

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