International Transportation (69) 1 | 2017 18 MoviCi - Urban Mobility in-the Smart City The project “MoviCi - Urban Mobility in the Smart City” connects Colombian and German researchers and practitioners City of tomorrow, Colombia, Germany, traffic, urban mobility The city of tomorrow is a city, where all citizens manage to travel from home to work, to school or to shopping or leisure destinations faster, safer and more reliable. This requires an integrated transport system that includes all modes and the integration of land use - the locations where people live and the destinations they travel to - and transport. To achieve this, the MoviCi project connects transport and land use practitioners and scientists working for planning and implementation of integrated transport systems. The aim is to build a network of stakeholders from industry local governments, civil society and research institutions in Colombia and Germany to exchange knowledge and good practice. Mirko Goletz, Dirk Heinrichs, Katharina Karnahl, Mathias Höhne A ll around the world, cities and urban agglomerations face similar challenges while trying to integrate the existing modes of public and individual transportation, while new modes driven by digitalization are being developed. With its initiative “Shaping the Future - Building the City of Tomorrow” 1 , the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education supports ten German research networks in their efforts to connect with partners from foreign countries to develop solution for future smart cities. The MoviCi project The DLR Institutes of Transport Research and Transportation Systems implement the project “MoviCi - Urban Mobility in the Smart City”, in Spanish “Movilidad urbana en ciudades intelligentes”. The project started in February 2017. Over a period of 18 STRATEGIES Colombian-German Research Network Medellín. Photo: Pixabay.de Colombian-German Research Network STRATEGIES International Transportation (69) 1 | 2017 19 months, it aims to connect Colombian and German partners to develop solutions for future urban mobility. It explores in particular the potentials of digitalization for new mobility services, for improving mobility and for reducing negative effects from transport. To achieve this, the project connects practitioners and researchers working for planning and implementation of integrated transport systems. The aim is to build a network of stakeholders from industry, governments and authorities of cities, transportation companies and research institutions in Colombia and Germany to exchange knowledge and good practice. The two DLR Institutes contribute to this goal by co-organizing three events with Colombian partners: a dialogue at the AndinaTraffic fair 2 in Bogotá, that took place from 27 to 29 March 2017, a workshop with municipal planners and decision makers that will take place in Calí (fall 2017) and a scientific symposium from 18 to 20 April 2018 in Medellín. Several partners in Colombia and Germany contribute to the project: BerlinPartner representing the City of Berlin, Metro- Calí, ITS Automotive Nord, ITS Colombia, German Partnership for Sustainable Mobility and Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín. Achieving integrated mobility: DLR competences in the MoviCi project The two DLR Institutes contribute specific competences from their research portfolio to the project. This includes the topics: • intermodal travel in urban areas, • new and integrated mobility services that emerge with information and communication technology, • transport demand and traffic modelling in urban areas, • development of innovative methods for traffic monitoring, • development of methods to influence traffic operations and quality in transportation Intermodal travel can be a key component of an efficient urban mobility system in the future. Intermodal mobility describes the use of different means of transport during a single trip. Enabled by digitalization, it promises users a high degree of flexibility and a ‘seamless’ journey, and increases the attractiveness of public transport. The larger cities get, the more common it becomes that users of public transport combine different modes along their journeys. The two DLR Transport Research Institutes currently assess intermodal travel in cities across Europe in the Urban Mobility project. 3 Intermodality requires the integration of high-capacity ‘backbone’ infrastructure with first and last mile services. Digitalization enables new solutions that permit a more flexible and individualized usage of transportation systems. Multiple modes of transport are integrated into a seamless trip chain with bookings and payments managed collectively. These solutions require the gathering and usage of data, which can then also be used for more efficient trip-planning , and to support decision-making for government and local authorities regarding improvements in regional public transport systems. The possibilities of managing transport demand by concentrating and optimizing trips in realtime facilitates on-demand services. The Institutes of Transport Research and Transportation Systems are currently involved in the development and evaluation of a flexible bus system in a small sized city in Germany. 4 In this project information and booking through a smartphone app is controlled by the passengers and requires dynamic realtime routing and dynamic calculation of trip time. This on-demand bus transport is temporal and spatial flexible without a fixed time-table and is suitable for times or areas with less demand. However, the integration of such new services, when taken to the Colombian context, does not only have to consider existing public transport systems like Bus Rapid Transit, Light Rail Transit or the spreading cable cars in Colombian cities. They also face existing informal services like motorcycle taxis, tricycles or, most recently, platform based taxis services such as Uber. Seeking ways to integrate these services in an intermodal context will be one of the topics of the MoviCi project. The DLR Institute of Transport Research brings in competences from its current Mototaxi project 5 . Transport demand and traffic modelling in urban areas is an important tool for decision making on transport investment and regulation, but also to understand the effects of new services on the transport system.The Institute of Transportation Systems develops and runs the microscopic traffic simulation tool SUMO (Simulation of Urban Mobility) 6 in order to test and evaluate the impact of new mobility solutions. The open source software suite SUMO covers road network imports and enrichment, demand generation and assignment and a state-ofthe-art microscopic traffic simulation capable to simulate private and public transport modes, as well as person-based trip chains. The MoviCi project at the AndinaTraffic in March 2017 The project made a first appearance at the AndinaTraffic fair 7 (figure 1). This biannual event is one of the largest exhibitions for ITS and ICT solutions in transport in South America. This year, the fair took place from March 27 to 29 in Bogotá. It attracted more than 1000 visitors from 23 countries. Almost 100 exhibitors presented their products. The MoviCi project was present with a project stand. The project team likewise contributed the conference program of the fair. Dirk Heinrichs highlighted current trends in intermodal travel in urban areas. He provided answers to three questions: Why intermodality is a topic in cities? What do we know about how people in cities practice intermodality? Based on user needs: what are the lessons for planning a user- Figure 1: MoviCi project team at AndinaTraffic fair with University of Medellín representatives Source: DLR/ MoviCi STRATEGIES Colombian-German Research Network International Transportation (69) 1 | 2017 20 centred intermodal transport system? Using experiences from Singapore, Shanghai and Bogotá, the presentation illustrated how transport systems have changed with urbanization over the recent decades. Based on empirical data from a dedicated survey on urban intermodal travel in Germany, Heinrichs showed the importance of the first and last mile and the interchange for intermodal travel. Katharina Karnahl pointed out how digitalization and the technological development enable new innovative solutions with respect to individualization, flexibilization and optimized usage of transportation systems. Integrated mobility solutions combine transportation services from different providers, organized on one platform for arranging and managing the trips. Ondemand services are based on managing transport demand by concentrating and optimizing trips in real-time. In the future self-driving vehicles can support this specific use case, with on-demand services being more affordable with autonomous vehicles. As an example for on-demand services the development and evaluation of a flexible bus system was presented, a project the Institutes of Transport Research and Transportation Systems are currently working on. Mathias Höhne has shown that traffic signal control strongly influences the quality of traffic within urban street networks. Due to innovation in ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) new datasources like video capturing, wireless inroad detectors and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication (V2X) have been introduced to traffic management. Based on this progress the DLR developed two novel approaches that utilize data from ICT for an optimized traffic signal control in fast growing mega cities. The work of the DLR shows how new signal-control methods can help municipalities to reduce congestion, minimize waiting times and decrease vehicular emissions. To do so, it became necessary to bridge the gap between the scientific findings, which are mostly based on simulation studies, and their commercial application in the real world. To validate the simulation results, the new methods have been tested in the field. The results of this work were presented to the audience. Activities ahead The project team will present the MoviCi project at the Smart Cities NYC in New York from 03 to 06 May 2017 as part of a delegation from the “Shaping the Future - Building the City of Tomorrow”-campaign. Likewise preparations are starting for the dialogue with practioners in November 2017 and the scientific symposium in April 2018 in Colombia. ■ 1 https: / / www.research-in-germany.org/ shaping-thefuture/ about-the-campaign.html 2 http: / / www.andinatraffic.com 3 http: / / www.urmo.info 4 http: / / www.reallabor-schorndorf.de 5 http: / / www.urmo.info 6 http: / / sumo.dlr.de 7 http: / / www.andinatraffic.com Katharina Karnahl, Dipl. Ing. Research associate, DLR Institute of Transportation Systems, Berlin (DE) katharina.karnahl@dlr.de Mathias Höhne, Dipl. Ing. Research associate, DLR Institute of Transportation Systems, Berlin (DE) mathias.hoehne@dlr.de Dirk Heinrichs, Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Head of the Department Mobility and Urban Development, DLR Institut of Transport Research, Berlin (DE) dirk.heinrichs@dlr.de Mirko Goletz Graduate economist, Research associate Mobility and Urban Development, DLR Institut of Transport Research, Berlin (DE) mirko.goletz@dlr.de Find out more movilidad urbana en ciudades inteligentes movici The MoviCi Website provides more information on the project and how to get involved. Project partners are BerlinPartner, MetroCalí, ITS Automotive Nord, ITS Colombia, German Partnership for Sustainable Mobility, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín and Trialog Publishers (media partner). Anyone interested in receiving news on the dialogue with practioners and the call for papers for the symposium in Medellín is sincerely invited to contact the project team. www.movici.com - movici@dlr.de.