TRANS-FORM – Smart transfers through unraveling urban form and travel flow dynamics

Project status

Ongoing

Project Manager

Johanna Törnqvist Krasemann

johanna.tornquist.krasemann@bth.se

Category/Area

Research in Computer Science

Smart cities and communities rely on efficient, reliable and robust transport systems. Managing urban public transport systems is becoming increasingly challenging with a pronounced shift towards multiply actors operating in a multi-modal multi-level networks. This calls for the development of an integrated passenger-focused management approach which takes advantage of multiple data sources and state-of-the-art scheduling support.

TRANS-FORM, a cooperation between universities, industrial partners, public authorities and private operators, will develop, implement and test a data driven decision making tool that will support smart planning and proactive and adaptive operations. The tool will integrate new concepts and methods of behavioural modelling, passenger flow forecasting and network state predictions into real-time operations.

New empirical knowledge and modelling foundations will be developed by undertaking a multi-level approach for monitoring, mapping, analysing and managing urban dynamics in relation to interchanging travel flows. Analysis of pedestrian and traveller flows at the hub, urban and regional networks is facilitated by data secured from case studies in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden, respectively. Project outcomes will allow policy makers and service providers to better understand how travel demand evolves, model traveller flows and interchange activities, develop different strategic and operational measures, and evaluate their impacts.

The project runs 2016-2018 and is funded via JPI Urban Europe ERA-Net Cofund Smart Cities and Communities (http://jpi-urbaneurope.eu/enscc/) with the support from the national funding agencies NWO, DETEC, FORMAS and CDTI and the project stakeholder partners.

Consortium

In order to realize the TRANS-FORM project objectives, project consortium consists of six partners from four countries, of which four are academic partners and two are industrial partners:

TU Delft, The Netherlands (contact: Dr. Oded Cats)
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland (contact: Dr. Riccardo Scarinci)
Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH), Sweden (contact: Dr. Johanna Törnquist Krasemann)
Linköping University (LiU), Sweden (contact: Dr. Clas Rydergren)
IBM Research, Switzerland (contact: Dr. Marco Laumanns)
ETRA, Spain (contact: Mr. Antonio Marqués)

The analysis of big data on travel patterns from detailed intra-station activities to network-wide flows and the development of real-time operation strategies that take this information into consideration require a variety of experience and expertise. All of the partners are primarily engaged in transportation research while anchored in distinctive disciplines and knowledge domains: operations research (BTH, LiU and IBM), choice modelling (EPFL), traffic flow (LiU and TUD), big data analytics and technological mobility solutions (IBM and ETRA), demand, network and assignment models (TUD and EPFL), public transport operations (BTH, TUD and ETRA), and simulation modelling (BTH and TUD).

All partners have experience with analysing big data such as mobile phone (LiU), GPS data and pedestrian tracking (EPFL), smartcard, traffic and pedestrian counts (TUD), and railway traffic signal passages (BTH). Consortium partners took part in several national projects that involved the analysis of big data in transport systems domain, such as pedestrian dynamics, SPOT, MODE, FLOAT, Regiolab Delft and UML. This experience and the expertise gained through it will be instrumental in analysing the smart data involved in this project. Each consortium member contributes with its unique set of expertise to jointly realize this project.

The project is based on a number of case studies, which a number of important stakeholder partners are associated with, according to below illustration, and the research will be conducted in close cooperation with these organisations.

For more information visit the project website: http://www.trans-form-project.org/