Vincenzo Pasquale Giofrè

A co-operative methodology to estimate car fuel consumption by using smartphone sensors

AbstractThe European Commission has recently promoted research programs aimed at finding solutions to the ever more compelling problem of air pollution from road vehicles and has also indicated a better sustainability among the possible impacts of co-operative Intelligent Transportation Systems. In fact, many practical solutions can be developed that allow drivers and management to optimise resources and to contain costs and the emissions of pollutants by applying communication systems between vehicles (Vehicle-to-Vehicle – V2V) and between vehicles and infrastructure (Vehicle-to-Infrastructure – V2I). Along this mainstream this paper present a co-operative system which offer drivers the ability to manage their consumption and driving style, suggesting corrections to the usually adopted behaviour. The new contribution of this paper is both the co-operative approach between drivers to achieve a common goal of a better common energy consumption strategy and a methodology to estimate fuel consumption just by...

Ecosmart and TutorDrive: Tools for fuel consumption reduction

The European Commission has recently promoted research programs aimed at finding solutions to the ever more compelling problem of air pollution from road vehicles and has also indicated among the possible impacts of cooperative Intelligent transportation a better sustainability, by cutting down pollutant emissions and reducing consumptions. In fact many practical solutions will develop that allow drivers and managements to optimize resources and to contain costs and the emissions of pollutants by applying communication systems between vehicles (V2V) and between vehicles and infrastructure (V2I). Along this mainstream this paper present a cooperative system which offer drivers the ability to manage their consumption and driving style, suggesting corrections to the behavior usually adopted. The new contribution of this paper is the cooperative approach between drivers to achieve a common goal of a better common energy consumption strategy. Since the fuel consumption has to be evaluated with regards to the specific vehicle type the system is based also on crowdsourcing of the specific vehicle consumption performances. The paper describes a system that gathers data on fuel consumption from the cooperating drivers that by can build together the data set necessary to the system itself and accept this new paradigm: crowd sourced cooperation for a better world.

Traffic Delays Estimation in Two-lane Highway Reconstruction

Abstract An increasingly important issue, as congestion levels increase more and more, is that freeways become subject to rebuilding and restructuring when traffic cannot be re-routed. It has already been asserted that traffic simulation provides a better approach to the analysis of freeway reconstruction than the traditional Highway Capacity Manual. In fact the users’ delay on freeway under reconstruction, when traffic flow is under capacity, cannot be evaluated by the standard HCM procedures. The impacts on existing traffic patterns are significant: the costs of delay and safety suffered by users even for low flows requires to take adequate management actions. From the point of view of direct reconstruction costs, every attempt to reduce user cost brings an increase in the direct costs of rebuilding. So there is a clear trade-off between reducing direct costs and mitigating the costs to travellers and economic activities. The object of this paper is to allow the evaluation of the delay that is suffered by the users of two-lane freeways when only one lane is available. The delays for different flow levels and different lengths of the reconstruction area are evaluated with the use of a tailored new developed microscopic traffic simulation model.

The Use of Adaptive Traffic Signal Systems Based on Floating Car Data

This paper presents a simple concept which has not been, up to now, thoroughly explored in scientific research: the use of information coming from the network of Internet connected mobile devices (on vehicles) to regulate traffic light systems. Three large-scale changes are going to shape the future of transportation and could lead to the regulation of traffic signal system based on floating car data (FCD): (i) the implementation of Internet connected cars with global navigation satellite (GNSS) system receivers and the autonomous car revolution; (ii) the spreading of mobile cooperative Web 2.0 and the extension to connected vehicles; (iii) an increasing need for sustainability of transportation in terms of energy efficiency, traffic safety, and environmental issues. Up to now, the concept of floating car data (FCD) has only been extensively used to obtain traffic information and estimate traffic parameters. Traffic lights regulation based on FCD technology has not been fully researched since the implementation requires new ideas and algorithms. This paper intends to provide a seminal insight into the important issue of adaptive traffic light based on FCD by presenting ideas that can be useful to researchers and engineers in the long-term task of developing new algorithms and systems that may revolutionize the way traffic lights are regulated.

Real road network application of a new microsimulation tool: TRITONE

The aim of the paper is to carry out a comparative study of 13 different traffic flow models available in TRITONE, a new road traffic simulator that specializes particularly in quantitative road safety assessment. After a short introduction on a traffic flow modelling, a description of the TRITONE functionality is given and various types of behavioural models available in this tool are presented in brief. Then a part of Poznan (Poland) network that served as the study area, was illustrated. The following section lists all the models used in the research and provides a comparison of the results obtained with these models. The article ends with conclusions on the results’ quality of individual models.

Mobile Systems applied to Traffic Management and Safety: a state of the art.

Abstract Mobile systems applied to traffic management and control and traffic safety have the potential to shape the future of road transportation. The following innovations, that will be deployed on a large scale, could reshape road traffic management practices: – the implementation of connected vehicles with global navigation satellite (GNSS) system receivers; – the autonomous car revolution; – the spreading of smartphone-based systems and the development of Mobile Cooperative Web 2.0 which is laying the base for future development of systems that will also incorporate connected and autonomous vehicles; – an increasing need for sustainability of transportation in terms of energy efficiency, traffic safety and environmental issues. This paper intends to provide a state of the art on current systems and an anticipation of how mobile systems applied to traffic management and safety could lead to a completely new transportation system in which safety and congestion issues are finally properly addressed.

Mobile for emergencies M4EM: a cooperative software tool for emergency management operations

Abstract In serious emergencies, as in the case of floods and extreme weather conditions, where a substantial number of people are involved and over vast areas which may also involve different provinces, currently civil protection planning carries on emergency management operations within rigid schemes. A procedure that would be capable of handling events acquiring data continuously and developing real time solutions in a highly flexible manner has not yet been proposed. This research focuses on how the systematization of information systems and communication processes can improve the management of emergencies caused by extreme weather and climate events. The objectives of improved service, levels of safety and sustainability of the intervention in emergencies would be obtained through a centralized decision support system. The system and tools that are presented in this paper aim to respond to emergency issues dynamically responding to the dynamics of the events by taking advantage of an information system capable of sharing data, notifications, service orders, appeals for help, information on the status of the transport network and any other information. The system would provide decision support by acquiring information from smartphones and other nomadic devices; it would so provide exchange of information in real time on one or more virtual platforms among stakeholders and between them and the citizens. Substantially, the system is based on smartphone applications coupled with a central management emergency Decision Support System specifically built to make best use of the possibilities offered by the latest telematics systems and cooperative web and phone-based tools.

Localization issues in the use of ITS

The problem to rectify and optimize distance measures from satellites in GNSS devices has been thoroughly explored in many researches. Instead there is not much information on available procedures to replicate the observed errors. The replication of GNSS errors can, in fact, be useful in many traffic simulation scenarios to test for ITS performances. The purpose of this article is to present cases where such a methodology can be useful and then introduce a methodology for the explicit simulation of errors in GNSS systems. The proposed methodology is based on the experimental analysis of some statistical distributions. Such distributions, arising from multiple observations in the field, are able to reproduce the behavior of the error in time as a function of the factors that influence it. The analyzed data were extracted by the GPS/GLONASS sensors of common smartphones and compared with a high-precision GPS equipment. These data were evaluated in different signal coverage conditions, in an open field where the signal quality is expected to be better, suburban and urban areas, where the signal is expected to be worse. The analysis considers many aspects such as the signal reflection problems and the sudden loss of the signal because of a change of the received satellite constellation. The research was conducted by following various steps: a field survey through smartphones and high-precision instrumentation in different conditions, the creation of reference distributions for each parameter that can have an influence on the error, the analysis of correlation functions between the variables, and a final implementation of the proposed algorithm coupled with microsimulation. The paper intends to shed some light on this problem allowing scientist and developers of new ITS system methodologies to reproduce in a simulated environment not only the movement of single vehicles (as usually carried on with microsimulation) but also the data that could be obtained from on-vechicle GNSS instrumentation. The reproduction of this GNSS tracks can be useful to assess the overall response of some new ITS systems before implementing them in the field. The proposed simulation methodology could become a standard tool to help in making better decisions in ITS implementation and to develop better ITS systems.