276 | SMART MOBILITY
Drivers of urban mobility management Advanced data analytics is the key to meeting the challenges of making our cities smarter, helping them become safer, less congested and more efficient for the future Words | Ignasi Vilajosana, Worldsensing, Spain
By 2030 nearly five billion (61%) of the world’s 8.1 billion people will live in cities. To manage this rising tide, cities will need to respond to unexpected situations faster and manage congestion and inner-city traffic more efficiently than ever. Our ability to extract meaningful insights from data will transform urban mobility entirely, but to get there we need to build tools that enable real-time decision making. Historically, city services such as traffic management and first responders have been reactive to disruptive events, without the means to plan proactively and foresee unexpected situations. Due to rising complexity in urban operations, cities must evolve from mere data collection and visualization, to decision-making support tools that recommend actions and show
Intertraffic World | Annual Showcase 2018
potential outcomes before critical events occur and operational decisions are made. Here are three key drivers behind the adoption of new ways of managing mobility, in descending order of importance to city officials:
1. Safety and security New geopolitical realities pose strong challenges regarding societal protection, stability and well-being. This has not gone unnoticed. Leaders are understanding that managing the mobility of individuals and identifying anomalous mobility patterns can also be a powerful tool in improving overall safety and security. Indeed, they can’t afford to risk citizens’ safety by implementing an imperfect solution. Therefore, urban leaders are also increasingly seeking solutions that
facilitate citizen engagement, such the ability to report real-time incidents or give instant feedback to citizens. Important information already exists within traffic management systems such as traffic cameras, Bluetooth and wi-fi trackers, but siloed (self-contained) data centers offer limited visibility on such data, and solutions that provide more insights are necessary. You can’t make life-impacting decisions if you can’t see the full picture.
2. Urban mobility Beyond safety concerns lies an emphasis on enhancements to city mobility. Mobility and urban parking management are crucial to managing economic development and the lifeblood of our cities: everyday transport systems bring people to work and to
