MARVEL aims to empower smart city authorities to better support their societies! It can support data-driven, real-time application workflows and decision-making in modern cities. It will also showcase the potential to address societal challenges very effectively that benefit as many citizens as possible as well as the society as a whole. Greenroads, a partner in the MARVEL consortium, is bringing the transportation pilot to life. 

Smart cities are making great strides in achieving the real-time situational awareness and cross-agency collaboration needed when it comes to traffic management,  citizen safety, and security. Transportation is an important application area for MARVEL with some of the biggest potential. Transportation is an essential part of any smart city project since 50% of public space in Europe is taken up by roads. Citizens’ mobility and the delivery of goods and services depend on it, therefore solutions that enable real-time traffic monitoring to reduce congestion and optimize traffic flow are more than needed. A non-optimal road network is costly for the environment, public health, and the economy alike.  

The main blocking point for the use of Active Mobility modes such as walking and cycling is the lack of perceived safety, especially when crossing an intersection. Road safety remains a major cause of premature death and is a major societal issue that may deter users from choosing active modes, hence the scope behind the pilots is to improve visibility and make active modes more attractive. In countries with low penetration rates for active modes, or historical cities characterized by limited road space, segregated/protected lanes can be hard to achieve, and shared multimodal roads are the reality for many commuters.

The MARVEL traffic management use-cases are intended to facilitate the allocation and utilization monitoring of physical transport resources and encourage sustainable mobility. The starting point for all of this is the four use cases that Greenroads is focusing on, building on AI technology that identifies the various types of vehicles and trajectories. This tech can be applied to inform decision-making intended to reduce vehicle emissions in urban and non-urban areas, aid timely maintenance of physical infrastructure and minimize additional land use. Another important application is increased safety for vulnerable road users and identifying areas for enforcement or informing education campaigns.  While safety is a matter of the conventional planning and use of space, it is also a matter of the traditional traffic management systems that give emphasis on car flows instead.