Myway NEWSLETTER No1 | 1

Started in September 2013, MyWay is a two and a half year project addressing personal mobility in the evolving context of Smart Cities. Partly funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Program for Research & Technology Development, it involves public authorities, transport service provid-ers, ICT solution providers, research organizations as well as POLIS, the European network of cities and regions for transport innovation.

In addition to private vehicles and traditional pub-lic transport and non-motorised modes, European citizens can ben-efi t, nowadays, from a variety of sustainable and complementary mobility services. Dynamic vehicle sharing, real-time carpooling, de-mand-responsive transport, Electric Vehicles schemes and the like have been rapidly developing in many cit-ies over the past few years. However, the integration of such schemes in the overall urban mobility picture has not attained the desired level. Cars still remain the preferred and prevailing choice of the users, with the adverse eff ects and negative impacts on the ur-ban environment and liveability of our cities we can all see every day.

MyWay aims to make European citizens’ travel options and experience more attractive and pleasurable while at the same time more sustainable, by facilitating per-

sonalized seamless integration of public and private transport. To this end, MyWay will investigate, develop and validate an integrated service platform – the Eu-ropean Smart Mobility Resource Manager – including cloud-based and mobile services, multi-modal dy-namic journey planning services as well as facilities to support community-supplied information.

Three Living Labs have been set up in three urban en-vironments: two large capital cities – Barcelona, Cata-lonia and Berlin – and a mid-size urban environment

–Trikala, Greece – which will help assessing the generality, portability and scalability of MyWay services in diff erent kinds of urban contexts. Project operations have started in all three Living Labs and will con-tinue with continuous stakeholder and user involvement until the suc-cessful end of the project.

This newsletter is the fi rst issue of a project communication tool we plan to publish regularly, off ering you an

easy and quick way to keep in touch with MyWay activi-ties. We will be very pleased if you would keep reading us in the future and are happy about any comments or suggestions you may kindly wish to share with us in or-der to help improve our eff orts and work.

Marco BoeroMyWay Project Coordinator,

on behalf of the MyWay Consortium

Nº1, March 2014NEWSLETTER

DEAR READER,CONTENTI’m very pleased to welcome you to the fi rst issue of the MyWay Newsletters.EDITORIAL 1

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: MyWay Living Labs 2Berlin Living Lab 2Catalonia Living Lab 2Trikala Living Lab 3PROJECT UPDATE: Review of enabling technologies and solutions 2USER STORIES: Specifying the MyWay functionality 4LOOKING AROUND EUROPE 4UbiGo 4French government plans multimodal traff ic planner application 4VBB allows ticketing through its Android App 4OPTICITIES 4SUPERHUB 4EVENTS CALENDAR 5BOXESChallenges 3Catalonia Focus Group Meets for the First Time 4Verkehrsmanagementzentrale Berlin (VMZ) 5MyWay objectives 5

“This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 609023.”

2 | Myway NEWSLETTER No1

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: MyWay Living Labs

PROJECT UPDATE: REVIEW OF ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES AND SOLUTIONSAs part of the fi rst stage of the MyWay project, an analysis of the current state of the art for tech-nologies, services and approaches has just been completed.There are many diff erent ITS standards, products and applica-tions which are relevant to MyWay. From end-user oriented solutions such as OpenTripPlanner or Waze, one of the most popular apps in the big application stores, to back-end data systems such as GTFS and standards such as Siri or Datex II, the MyWay project has analysed them all.“On the basis of this analysis, we have developed some recom-mendations which, together with the requirements, will allow the implementation activities to kick off ”, explains Marco Garrè from SOFTECO, the company coordi-nating MyWay. The review has produced some signifi cant results. “We have found that public and private transport services – such as car-sharing or demand-responsive transport systems – oft en still lack strong integration.” Marco Garrè explains. This integration is one of the main aims that the My-Way platform wants to achieve, together with a highly personal-ised experience.An optimistic Marco Garrè concludes: “Now that we have seen that MyWay will indeed fi ll a niche in the market of mobility planning apps, implementation is off to a good start.”

One of the fi rst milestones of the MyWay project was to set up three Living Labs – three diff erent cities where MyWay will be tested and three diff erent approaches to how MyWay can help citizens choose the right mix of sustainable transport options.

The MyWay Living Labs are Catalonia/Bar-celona, Berlin and Trikala. Barcelona and Berlin will be examples of large and densely populated areas with a large mix of transport modes, whereas Trikala will be used as an ex-ample of a smaller urban area with a popula-tion of 76,000 and fewer transport options.

BERLIN LIVING LABBerlin is an ambitious city, when it comes to promoting sustainable urban mobility. One of its ambitions, through the Berlin Living Lab in MyWay, is to show how the MyWay travel planner could help Berliners to make the switch to even more sustainable transport.“The MyWay Berlin Living Lab is as interna-tional and diverse as its population,” says Tom Schilling from project partner VMZ (see box). As the capital of Germany, Berlin is also Germany’s largest city with 3.2 Million inhab-itants living in an area covering 891.85 km2. Being a very international city, Berlin has inhabitants from more than 180 diff erent na-tions. The pilot will include diff erent car sharing concepts – free-fl oating and fi xed-stations, diff erent bike sharing companies as well as Berlin’s well known area-wide traditional public transport network. “The public trans-port network is well-equipped for MyWay,” Tom Schilling says, “as more than 100km of the network has cell phone coverage.”Adding to the diversity, the car sharing schemes and the public transport networks cover diff erent geographical areas as well as various population and settlement struc-tures. Users participating in the Berlin Living

Lab will therefore include young students as well as middle-aged employees.The Berlin Living Lab aims to establish a solid and balanced base of transport options, in-cluding public and private transport, as well as carpooling, bike sharing and walking in Berlin. Berlin also wants to address the po-litical goals of fostering eco-mobility and im-

proving the links between diff erent modes of transport. “We hope that MyWay will be easy to use, with an appealing interface, and that this will help Berlin to move closer to these goals,“ says Tom Schilling.

The MyWay application will be tested by two focus groups in the Berlin Living Lab. The fi rst group will be recruited among the employees of VMZ-Berlin and Fraunhofer FOKUS on a voluntary base. The second group will be stu-dents from the Technische Universität Ber-lin. The students will be approached during courses taught by teachers from Fraunhofer FOKUS, also a partner in the project.

CATALONIA LIVING LABThe MyWay Living Lab in Catalonia will not only cover the Barcelona metropolitan area but the whole of the Catalonia region in Spain.“We want MyWay to be used by as many citi-zens as possible,” says Cristina PouFonollà from project partner Generalitat de Catalu-nya (Gencat). Public transport demand has grown signifi cantly, by 18% during the last 10

©Eltis

© Matthias Heyde/ Fraunhofer FOKUS BERLIN

Myway NEWSLETTER No1 | 3

years. In 2012, 956 million trips were made. “One of the main goals of the Government of Catalonia is to provide real-time and in-tegrated traveller information, including all possible modes of transport,” says Cristina Pou Fonollà.

Catalonia has been the fi rst region of Spain with a public transport journey planner (mou-te.gencat.cat). The platform now includes more than 70 public transport operators, rep-resenting 1.060 lines and 11.900 stops.

The deployment of MyWay in the Catalonia Living Lab will be the most comprehensive one of the three living labs. MyWay for Cata-lonia will not only include real-time informa-tion, but also integration of a wide variety of public and private mobility services and modes. Users in Barcelona will be able to book an electric scooter, or a bus on demand – the latter is an important feature in the more rural regions outside Barcelona.

The Barcelona Living Lab has selected seven focus groups for the MyWay app to be tested. Students and staff from the Universitat Uni-versitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) com-muters, students and elderly people from Barcelona suburb Vall de Tenes and Gencat employees will be able to test the app.

TRIKALA LIVING LAB

Smaller than the other ones, the Living Lab in Trikala hopefully provides some valuable insights into how MyWay could be used in a medium-sized city.

Trikala is a city of approximately 82.000 in-habitants, located north-west of Athens in a great plain area, below the mountains which lie north of the City. Inhabitants of the greater Trikala area have been demanding more af-fordable, reliable and multimodal transpor-tation as the existing infrastructure lacks the sophistication of an integrated transport ap-proach.

The MyWayTrikala Living Lab aims at providing initial feedback about the design and implementation of the MyWay platform. The Tri-kala Living Lab will also as-sess a number of indicators for a medium-sized city. The indicators include, among others, the reduction of mu-nicipal resources required for transport, the decon-gestion of the city centre, the reduction of CO2 emis-sions through the use of environmental means, and

the promotion of innovative mobility sharing schemes.

Trikala is a connected city and therefore well-suited to be one of the fi rst places where My-Way will be implemented and used. The ICT infrastructure of Trikala already includes, among others, an extensive network of fi ber-optic cables and WiFi access points that pro-vide enhanced network connectivity across the entire municipality.

In addition, the current transport system of Trikala supports both public and private commuting. The Trikala public transpor-tation fl eet consists of vehicles and buses equipped with GPS positioning systems ac-companied by real-time information systems installed across the municipality. Moreover, a large amount of e-parking spots are spread across Trikala along with interactive parking information signs making it easier for citizens using private transportation modes.

Finally, a traff ic monitoring system based on inductive loops enables traff ic management and provides the basis for the development of traff ic congestion avoidance systems. The MyWay Living Lab will assemble the current transport and ICT systems, thus creating a fully functional model for developing, testing and evaluating essential aspects of the My-Way platform.

from private modes (cars/motorbikes) to collective (public transport) and fl exible modes (fl exible transport, shared e-scooters, bikes).

CHALLENGES

Congestion – Euro-pean roads suff er from large amounts of traff ic and congestion due to the extensive amount of people who travel predominantly by car, and thus prolong journey times. The modal split of transport is dominated by passenger cars account-ing for 73.4% of passenger traff ic compared to just 1.4% for tram and metro combined (2011).

Air quality – Motor vehi-cles are a major source of pollution that contami-nates the air we breathe and can cause harmful health eff ects. According to the WHO, Some 40 million people in the 115 largest cities in the Euro-pean Union are exposed to air exceeding WHO air quality guideline values for at least one pollutant.

GHG – Road transport accounts for 72% of total GHG emissions from the transport sector and transport overall is responsible for 1/4 of overall GHG emissions in Europe.

© e-trikalaTRIKALA

© Autoritat del Transport Metropolità, Catalonia

4 | Myway NEWSLETTER No1

Looking around Europe

USER STORIES: SPECIFYING THE MYWAY FUNCTIONALITYWhen developing a smart-phone app like MyWay, there is one golden rule: know what the users want fi rst. “In the fi rst phase, we have been preparing user scenarios, describing diff erent kinds of users and their motivation and interaction with the prospec-tive MyWay app,” explains MiroslavBures from Prague Technical University, one of the project partners. “Aft er all, we want to develop an app that people want to use, that takes account of their needs, and that is as self-explanatory as possible.”

Use cases include users want-ing to book mobility services, join a car-sharing community, book other vehicle sharing ser-vices, or plan an entire trip.

“What we have done next is to develop a set of requirements for what the app should be able to do, based on the use cases,” says MiroslavBures.

“THIS MEANS, FOR EXAM-PLE, THAT THE APP MUST HAVE REAL-TIME DATA ABOUT PUBLIC TRANS-PORT, BE INTEGRATED WITH DIFFERENT VEHICLE SHARING SCHEMES, AND BE ABLE TO FIND ROUTES AND POINTS OF INTEREST.”

But the process does not stop there, either. Now it is up to the Living Labs to defi ne which of the requirements are the most important to them. “We want to provide a tailored solution that works best for each city,” says MiroslavBures. “And of course, users from the city of Berlin will need other services than users from the region of Catalonia or from Trikala.”

UBIGOPilot project in Gothenburg allows seamless integration of diff erent mobility servicesSince 2013, the Swedish city of Gothenburg has been running UbiGo, a fully integrated mobility service. Started as a pilot project with 70 households, users can use a smart-phone application to book public transport, shared cars, and bike-sharing through the application.

http://web.viktoria.se/ubigo/las-mer/about-english/

FRENCH GOVERNMENT PLANS MULTIMODAL TRAFFIC PLANNER APPLICATIONMobile app is supposed to provide seamless traff ic planning on a national scaleThe French minister for the environment, Frédéric Cuvillier, has announced plans to develop a multi-modal traff ic planner appli-cation for the whole of France. Due to start in March 2014, the project aims to allow travel-ers to seamlessly integrate national, regional and local transport, including bike- and car-sharing as well as taxi services.

http://www.mobilicites.com/fr_actualites-demain--calculer-son-itineraire-en-france-avec-n- importe -quel-mode -de -trans -port_77_3072.html

VBB ALLOWS TICKETING THROUGH ITS ANDROID APPE-tickets now available via mobile in Berlin and BrandenburgVerkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg, the Public transport federation of Berlin and the surrounding federal state of Brandenburg, has recently published an update for its An-droid app which allows booking electronic tickets. The tickets are valid in more than 40 subsidiaries of the federation. An iPhone ver-sion is due to be published in the near future.

http://www.rbb-online.de/panorama/bei-trag/2014/02/vbb-tickets-app-livetracker.html

OPTICITIESOPTICITIES is a three-year ITS project started in 2013, aiming at delivering break-throughs in ITS for cities.The project is funded under the EU’s 7th Frame-work Programme and brings together 25 part-ners from across Europe with 6 pilot cities as well as partners from research, management, ICT, Public Transport and the car industry.

The project’s aim is to deliver breakthroughs in ITS and fostering the uptake of ITS solutions in major cities. Its focus lies on four main innovation areas – data creation and use, open ITS systems and standards, decision support tools, and mo-bility information services for traff ic managers, passengers and freight operators.

The project will involve over 200 users in the par-ticipating cities, in particular a multimodal urban navigator application that interfaces with in-car navigation systems.

The project hopes to deliver a 6% increase in the modals shift of soft mobility modes while achieving a 10% decrease in private car use by 2020. Other goals are public space gain (3,6 million m²) and the development of a market for ITS solutions.

http://www.opticities.com/

SUPERHUBThe SUPERHUB project is designing and testing an open source platform that com-bines diff erent mobility off ers while provid-ing real-time data.SUPERHUB (SUstainable and PERsuasive Hu-man Users moBility in future cities) involves 20 partners, including three pilot cities, Helsinki, Barcelona, and Milan. The application aims at redesigning transport route options and to foster behavioural changes, i.e. help citizens switch to more sustainable transport mode choices.

600 users in the three diff erent pilot cities have recently been selected to test the SU-PERHUB application. The project runs for 36 months and will come to an end this year.

http://superhub-project.eu/

CATALONIA FOCUS GROUPS MEET FOR THE FIRST TIME The fi rst focus group meetings have taken place in Barcelona at the end of February. These included employees of project partner Gencat (the regional council of Catalonia) liv-ing inside Barcelona as well as commuters. Elderly people living in Vall de Tenes outside Barcelona who have to go the city frequently came together for their fi rst meeting as well. Focus group meeting in Barcelona

Myway NEWSLETTER No1 | 5

TRANSPORT RESEARCH ARENA (TRA)

Paris, France April 2014, 2015 @ CNIT La Défense

http://www.traconference.eu/

MOBIL.TUM 2014 CONFERENCESUSTAINABLE MOBILITY IN METROPOLITAN REGIONS

Munich, Germany

19-20 May 2014

INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT FORUM 2014 ANNUAL SUMMIT

Leipzig, Germany

21-23 May 2014 http://2014.internationaltransportforum.org/

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON URBAN TRANSPORT AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Algarve, Portugal

28-30 May 2014 http://www.wessex.ac.uk/14-conferences/urban-transport-2014.html

ITS Spain Madrid, Spain 6-8 May 2014 http://www.itsspain.com/itsspain/index.php/evento/103

7TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS CITIES FOR MOBILITY

Stuttgart, Germany

1-3 June 2014 http://www.cities-for-mobility.net/

TRANSPORTS PUBLICS 2014THE EUROPEAN MOBILITY EXHIBITION

Paris, France 10-12 June 2014

http://www.transportspublics-expo.com/

ITS EUROPEAN CONGRESS Helsinki, Finland

16-19 June 2014

http://www.itsineurope.com/its10/

SUSTAINABLE ENERGY WEEK Brussels, Belgium

23-27 June 2014

http://www.eusew.eu/

2014 IEEE INTELLIGENT VEHICLES SYMPOSIUM

Dearborn, Michigan, USA

8-11 June 2014 http://www.ieeeiv.net/

17TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INFORMATION FUSION

Salamanca, Spain

7-10 July 2014 (Paper submission March 5, 2014)

http://www.fusion2014.org/

SMART CITIES ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2014

tbc tbc http://eu-smartcities.eu/conference

ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON INNOVATIVE APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Quebec City, Canada

27-31 July 2014 http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/IAAI/iaai13.php

EVENTS CALENDAR

MYWAY OBJECTIVES

Enable a better bal-ance between mobility off ers by facilitating the seamless integration of public transport and other sustainable public and private transport modes in users’ personal mobility choices.

Stimulate service coop-eration and market de-velopment by providing tools and technical solu-tions for transport service providers and operators to help improve service off er, interoperability and accessibility in the overall multimodal service chain.

Enhance the personalisa-tion and user adaptation of mobility services by in-creasing the cooperation between users and the transport system through incorporating user experi-ences, social networking and crowd sourcing in service planning and use.

Foster ICT transforma-tive technologies in smart mobility by provid-ing and validating in real-life conditions innovative technological solutions for the next generation of smart mobility services.

“The sole responsibility for the con-tent of this publication lies with the authors. It does not necessarily refl ect the opinion of the European Commu-nities. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.”

Founded in 1999 as a Public-Private Partner-ship by the city of Berlin, VMZ now provides research, services, planning, information and consulting to Berlin as the city’s traff ic man-agement agency.

VMZ has successfully run several projects such as the IQMobility integrated mobility manage-ment project, and was responsible for manag-ing traff ic during the FFA World Cup in Berlin in 2006 as its fi rst major test.

Today, the VMZ provides high-quality real-time data on the traff ic situation in the city, which will be used by the MyWay platform and the Berlin Living Lab. VMZ has been running the Verkehrsinformationszentrale Berlin (traff ic in-formation centre, VIZ) since 2012. The VMZ is a 100% subsidiary of SIEMENS.

http://www.vmzberlin.com/

VERKEHRSMANAGE-MENTZENTRALE BERLIN (VMZ)