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Sustainable mobility technologies

systems, including microgeneration and energy storage plants, electric or hybrid mobility systems, domestic sensors on lights as well as heating and cooling systems, thermostats, boilers, household appliances, and, in general, all equipment able to generate, consume and control energy within the domestic environment; • district, to interconnect the meters in neighborhoods or buildings, in order to manage the energy balance at an aggregate level; • metropolitan or extended, to redirect data to energy suppliers; it includes all management e-platforms for both energy distribution and ICT; • Inter-Grid, to enable smart grids in different countries to intercommunicate dynamically, managing energy on a consumption basis, but also relying bilateral agreements and policies14 .

Sustainable mobility technologies

Cities and metropolitan areas are today also considered major driving forces for national economies. This implies that a country’s competitiveness is also measured by assessing the efficiency of services (mostly those connected to mobility), livability, and opportunities offered by major cities. Those sectors have direct influence on the quality of life in urban areas, as well as on air quality, road traffic and general accessibility to services. This is the reason why a cutting-edge infrastructural policy must start from a few basic objectives, such as:

14 Elettronica Oggi 2021, Smart Grid and distribution networks, Fiera Milano Media SpA., n. 491, Milano.

strengthening and integrating local, regional and national public transport systems, particularly promoting rapid mass transit rail systems (metros and trams); creating the conditions for cycling and walking; and making available innovative digital tools applied to urban and extra-urban mobility in order to promote shared mobility services. In Italy, the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport (MIT), in order to cope with such critical issues, has recently set up a series of initiatives, to be included in the “Sustainable Mobility Urban Plans” for Italian cities. The entire MIT action is based on four strategies, namely: useful, flexible, and shared infrastructures; modal integration and intermodal passenger transport; enhancement of existing infrastructure assets; sustainable urban development. Within this framework, several lines of action are related to smart grids, essentially refocusing the mobility demand towards highly sustainable means of transport, promoting intermodal public and private transport, and improving the efficiency and technological upgrading of existing infrastructures. Nowadays, the rapid social changes, connected with innovation in communication, require a deep rethinking of public and private mobility, responding with innovative approaches to emerging critical urban issues, in order to enable increasing sustainable mobility, fully integrated in the common aim of having smart and user-friendly cities. The most promising path to ensure that citizens remain on board and actively engaged in the present urban mobility and digital transformation seems to be to promote new attitudes towards the interactive digitalization of mobility. Personal smartphones as well

as highly connected cars and other mobility means, can allow predictive algorithms to calculate the expected duration of routes with further precision, elaborating traffic data from the connected users in real time on the basis of their movements and the GPS satellite they are connected with. The increasing popularity of social networks favors new mobility models, also allowing peer-to-peer interaction among moving users, showing that an intelligent integration of social media, dedicated apps and monitoring networks, is a remarkable source of dynamic data, enabling interesting future mobility scenarios, based on our behaviors and routines. Bearing that in mind, we can highlight a few principles as relevant for the envisioned transformation. What is really needed are cities that are really Smart and able to offer, through networks, the relevant services for travel optimization, and more specifically to ensure the availability of flexible, sustainable, and customizable mass transport services for passengers and goods, such as car and bike sharing, responsive transport on demand, and city logistics for goods. This framework must include networking of services and their full availability, together with efficient and sustainable private traffic. The most promising development, however, concerns the Internet of Things (IoT) as most modern vehicles can provide traffic data (Extended Floating Car Data) continuously and at low cost. They can also interact with each other and with overarching control infrastructures in order to increase safety, security and efficiency. Modern technologies, such as cloud computing and Big Data, are opening up new possibilities as they

enable more appropriate and widespread management of transport networks, with limited cost and acceptable management difficulties. The availability of accurate and timely information, together with information and communication technologies, makes possible the application of increasingly effective and comprehensive predictive and control models. Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are recognized as key tools to address transport safety, emissions, and congestion, and the integration of existing technologies can be important in boosting jobs and growth in the transport sector. Work is already underway to implement the next generation of ITS solutions through the development of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS). C-ITS are systems able to share data through wireless technologies, connecting each other, as well as with road infrastructures or with other road users. These systems when able to realize full digital connectivity will be fundamental for improving road safety, traffic efficiency, and driving comfort. Connectivity, cooperation and automation, growing synergically and reinforcing each other, will in time reach full integration. The potential benefits of a strategic approach to Smart Mobility are clear, but the real advantages for cities will be significant only if Smart Mobility involves all city mobility actors and infrastructures, as well as a large part of citizens’ movements. In order to achieve positive results, it will be necessary to avoid ‘experimental’ approaches, based on demonstrative and sectorial projects, supporting instead fully comprehensive market-based. Also selecting basic

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