Leuven
Thessaloniki
Pilot city: Leuven (Belgium)
Leuven is a mid-sized city with 101,695 inhabitants (2019, Statbel; without unregistered students) and about 36,000 unregistered students (2019, own estimation), who have a large impact on city life.
The city occupies 57.51 km² and has a population density of 1,768 people per km² (without unregistered students).
Cars remain an important mode of transportation, as there are 505 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants (2017, own estimate based on City Monitor survey). However, first and foremost, Leuven is a cycling city. An overwhelming majority of students use cycling as their main mode of transport, resulting in large number of cyclists throughout the city and a high demand for infrastructure. There are over 30,000 bicycle parking spaces, numerous “cycling streets” where cyclists have the right of way and kilometres of bike lanes (providing various levels of separation from motorised traffic). Aimed mainly at commuters, there are “cycling highways” connecting Leuven to Brussels, to smaller cities in the region and to the Leuven outskirts.
Leuven has Belgium's 6th busiest train station, with an average of 33,932 boardings per week day (2018, NMBS). It connects Leuven with all major Belgian cities, including Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, and Liege, with the Leuven hinterland, and also directly with the international airport of Brussels. Local public transport is almost exclusively covered by the public bus company De Lijn. They have a bus fleet of 105 vehicles – 6 of which are full electric (Dec. 2019) – which cover 6.6 million vehicle kilometres per year (2019, De Lijn). Public transport use has grown spectacularly since the 1990s, but in recent years there has been stagnation, as lines and buses are completely saturated. Modal split (personal vehicle - public transport - bike/on foot): • Trips to work by persons working in Leuven: 61% - 19% - 19% (Woon-werk survey) • Trips to work by persons living in Leuven: 41% - 25% - 34% (City Monitor survey)
The city occupies 57.51 km² and has a population density of 1,768 people per km² (without unregistered students).
Cars remain an important mode of transportation, as there are 505 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants (2017, own estimate based on City Monitor survey). However, first and foremost, Leuven is a cycling city. An overwhelming majority of students use cycling as their main mode of transport, resulting in large number of cyclists throughout the city and a high demand for infrastructure. There are over 30,000 bicycle parking spaces, numerous “cycling streets” where cyclists have the right of way and kilometres of bike lanes (providing various levels of separation from motorised traffic). Aimed mainly at commuters, there are “cycling highways” connecting Leuven to Brussels, to smaller cities in the region and to the Leuven outskirts.
Leuven has Belgium's 6th busiest train station, with an average of 33,932 boardings per week day (2018, NMBS). It connects Leuven with all major Belgian cities, including Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, and Liege, with the Leuven hinterland, and also directly with the international airport of Brussels. Local public transport is almost exclusively covered by the public bus company De Lijn. They have a bus fleet of 105 vehicles – 6 of which are full electric (Dec. 2019) – which cover 6.6 million vehicle kilometres per year (2019, De Lijn). Public transport use has grown spectacularly since the 1990s, but in recent years there has been stagnation, as lines and buses are completely saturated. Modal split (personal vehicle - public transport - bike/on foot): • Trips to work by persons working in Leuven: 61% - 19% - 19% (Woon-werk survey) • Trips to work by persons living in Leuven: 41% - 25% - 34% (City Monitor survey)
Focus
The nuMIDAS project will allow Leuven to extend and improve data handling, monitoring, and analysing capabilities. There are 5 scenarios that are key for Leuven:
The nuMIDAS toolkit will provide a dashboard with all the information available with the following objectives:
consolidate and deepen the results of the MOMENTUM project to capture the impact of new transport options on urban mobility
integrate and analyse shared mobility data, provided by various shared mobility service companies, especially in the context of the eHUBS project.
real-time traffic monitoring
combining data sources with regards to environmental impact
evaluating MaaS initiatives
Pilot city: Thessaloniki (Greece)
The wider metropolitan area of Thessaloniki encompasses more than one million of citizens and spans approximately over 1500 km2 (with a resulting density of 665 inhabitants/km2). The city’s transport system accommodates a demand of over 1.5 million vehicle trips per day and is mainly comprised of private vehicles, taxis, urban, and interurban buses.
Having acknowledged the importance and benefits of new technologies applied in the transport sector, the city’s stakeholders have been engaged and have invested early on in innovation initiatives and projects, ranging from real-time infomobility solutions to operational cooperative mobility systems and services. These efforts have been acknowledged by the EU, including Thessaloniki as one of the smart mobility paradigms at EU level. The local ecosystem, comprised of local governmental authorities, transport service providers and operators, innovative SMEs and technology solution providers together with research and innovation institutes is continuously expanding the scope of its activities, towards improved and more efficient urban mobility, with low environmental impacts and increased safety.
Having acknowledged the importance and benefits of new technologies applied in the transport sector, the city’s stakeholders have been engaged and have invested early on in innovation initiatives and projects, ranging from real-time infomobility solutions to operational cooperative mobility systems and services. These efforts have been acknowledged by the EU, including Thessaloniki as one of the smart mobility paradigms at EU level. The local ecosystem, comprised of local governmental authorities, transport service providers and operators, innovative SMEs and technology solution providers together with research and innovation institutes is continuously expanding the scope of its activities, towards improved and more efficient urban mobility, with low environmental impacts and increased safety.
Focus
Challenges that are highly prioritised in the city of Thessaloniki include:
Optimize traffic efficiency
Provide optimal route recommendations
Increase road safety, including for VRUs
To address these challenges, Thessaloniki is highly interested in extending and enriching existing applications in the field of C-ITS and dynamic traffic management as well as to investigate the potential of new mobility schemes and services. The objectives of the city can be summarized as follows:
Exploit multiple data sources and advanced data analysis methods to quantify synthetic KPIs, thus enabling an enhanced impact assessment and ex-post monitoring of C-ITS enabled traffic management scenarios.
Advance existing microscopic and macroscopic models to support the ex-ante impact assessment of innovative mobility services.
Assess the impacts of deploying new (micro)mobility schemes making use of data exchange capabilities, such as connected e-scooters.
Assess the impacts of integrating C-ITS enabled traffic management services with automated vehicle technologies.
Assess the impacts of deploying mobility services utilizing automated shuttles connected with existing dynamic traffic management solutions.
Prove out the concept of applying AI-based techniques to enhance existing C-ITS enabled dynamic traffic management solutions.
Stakeholders in the city understand nuMIDAS toolkit as a toolset oriented around two dimensions. The first includes the exploitation of multiple data sources, data analytics, and modelling frameworks to support impact assessments, while the second includes the exploitation of the above along with advanced visualization techniques to support ex-post monitoring of the deployed mobility solutions.
To address these challenges, Thessaloniki is highly interested in extending and enriching existing applications in the field of C-ITS and dynamic traffic management as well as to investigate the potential of new mobility schemes and services. The objectives of the city can be summarized as follows:
Stakeholders in the city understand nuMIDAS toolkit as a toolset oriented around two dimensions. The first includes the exploitation of multiple data sources, data analytics, and modelling frameworks to support impact assessments, while the second includes the exploitation of the above along with advanced visualization techniques to support ex-post monitoring of the deployed mobility solutions.
