PILOT : INTEGRATED URBAN MOBILITY IN TAMPERE

Tampere is, with a population of about 230 000, the third largest city in Finland, and the largest inland centre in the Nordic countries.  Urban traffic management centres (TMCs) are in charge of keeping traffic flowing on the city’s road network. In case of traffic disturbances, the TMC operator either initiates actions to mitigate the disturbance or informs drivers. However, as they do not have visual contact to all roads in the network, they may not always be aware on the current status of the traffic in the network and the cause of disruptions. A wide range of sensors is available, such as traffic loops at intersections and traffic cameras, which make it possible to improve the situational awareness.

The objectives of the pilot are:

• Provision of tools for urban traffic management for diagnosis of traffic status and for selection of alternative solutions for mitigating the impact of roadworks and other events. Addition of new data sources for improved situational awareness, such as social media and traffic cameras.
• Provision of tools for drivers and travellers regarding traffic status.
• Provision of tools to improve the access of goods delivery vehicles to parking places.

The results of the pilot are:

• Novel tools to support the operator at the urban traffic management centre. Situational awareness is improved through the development of a dashboard, which gives an overview of the traffic situation in the city. New data sources are used, such as social media feeds and traffic cameras. The city of Tampere is installing traffic cameras near major intersections and roads. A tool has been developed for automatic analysis of the traffic cameras in order to support the traffic management centre operator.
• The pilot also provide tools to inform drivers about traffic status and traffic disruptions through both internet and social media. Real-time status and short time predictions on the traffic in Tampere are available on the internet. A process, which automatically generates Twitter messages in case of specific traffic disruptions, such as tunnel closures, has been developed during the project.
• An application has been developed to streamline parking access of goods delivery vehicles, based on a reservation system for dedicated parking places

The main KPIs which are used to measure the success of the pilot:

• Satisfaction of the urban Traffic Management Centre with the tools provided by the project
• Increase in the daily number of observations, due to increase of the amount of sensors and floating car data.
• Number of subscriptions to the automated twitter feeds for informing on important traffic events in the city.