FINAL NEWSLETTER  DECEMBER 2016
From November 2013 until October 2016, OPTICITIES developed and tested
interoperable urban Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) solutions to provide urban
citizens with the best possible journey conditions and to optimise urban logistics
operations. Its ambition was to support European cities to consolidate all local
transport data and provide it through a standardised gateway. This contributed to
optimising the urban mobility services and system as a whole and seeking
sustainable business models not depending solely on public funds. OPTICITIES is cofunded by the European Union and involves 25 partners from 8 Member States.
OPTICITIES: CREATING A LASTING LEGACY FOR URBAN ITS
OPTICITIES has officially come to an end on 31 October. Over the past three
years, partner cities Grand Lyon Métropole, Birmingham, Gothenburg, Madrid,
Turin and Wroclaw have successfully developed and tested a wide range of
innovative ITS solutions for passenger and freight transport, with the involvement
of leading industrial companies, service providers, academia and major European
networks.
The main achievements of the project include the development of an open ITS
architecture and system; a multimodal dataset model for urban mobility data; new
proposals for ITS standards; high-level multimodal travel planners; and a unique
interface that allows multimodal apps to connect and synchronise with in-car
navigation systems. OPTICITIES partners have also developed innovative
services for one-hour traffic prediction; real-time car pooling; road works
management and information systems; public transport prioritisation; and urban
freight navigators.
During the last six months of the project, additional efforts were invested in
promoting the outcomes of the project at local, national and European level by
organising a series of capacity building events and by raising awareness in the
EU institutions and among European stakeholders. This final edition of the
OPTICITIES newsletter presents an overview of recent activities and highlights
key final deliverables such as the OPTICITIES Transferability Handbook.
The legacy of OPTICITIES will be further exploited through the New Mobility
Services Initiative of the European Innovation Partnership for Smart Cities.
WWW.OPTICITIES.COM
A REPORT FROM THE OPTICITIES HIGH LEVEL DEBATE ON MOBILITY AS A
SERVICE IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT
On 10 October 2016, OPTICITIES organised a high level lunch debate at the
Renaissance Hotel in Brussels to present and discuss the final outcomes of
OPTICITIES and how these contribute to the large-scale deployment of advanced
mobility services in European cities. The event was endorsed by MEPs Wim van
de Camp (EPP) and Michael Cramer (Greens/EFA), and attracted 65 participants
from various stakeholder organisations and also provided an opportunity to see
live demonstrations of the interconnection between in-car navigation and the
OPTICITIES multimodal app.
MEP Wim van de Camp (EPP) delivering a key note speech at the start of the OPTICITIES final debate
The format of the lunch debate consisted of short introductory presentations
followed by panel discussions and interventions from the audience. The panel
included high-level representatives from the European Parliament (Michael
Cramer, European Greens), the European Commission (Herald Ruijters from DG
MOVE and Clara de la Torre from DG RESEARCH & INNOVATION), local
authorities (Marie-Anne Gobert, Grand Lyon Métropole), project partners (project
coordinator Jean Coldefy from Grand Lyon Métropole, Umberto Guida from UITP
and Steve George from Birmingham) and representatives from the ITS sector and
the car industry (Kaj Pyyhtiä from MaaS Global and Luc Marbach, from Vedecom
Institute).
The first part of the debate mainly focused on urban mobility stakes and
OPTICITIES solutions, addressing the potential role of new ITS tools and players
in providing access to city centres and the need for sustainable business models.
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The second part was dedicated to
the role of public-private partnerships
in
supporting
the
large-scale
deployment
of
urban
MaaS.
Panellists provided their opinion on
the ideal context conditions for
introducing Mobility as a Service, the
perceived socio-economic benefits,
the strategic short term challenges
and critical services such as parking,
public transport access and ticketing. MEPs Michael Cramer and Wim van de
Camp and EC directors Herald Ruijters (DG MOVE) and Clara de la Torre (DG
RESEARCH and INNOVATION) provide more insights on how European
institutions could support the large-scale deployment of MaaS.
KEY CONCLUSIONS FROM THE DEBATE:
 Mobility is a right and metropolitan authorities are challenged to provide the
same level of transport service across the whole territory. MaaS and ITS
can help to provide access to/from underserved areas;
 in the case of Birmingham, OPTICITIES brought a better understanding of
the network and how travel behaviour can be influenced;
 Car manufacturers have to learn from the current transition in the energy
sector and reinvent themselves as mobility providers;
 In order to scale up investment in transport innovation, projects that are
financed by the EU should investigate more the potential of public-private
partnerships;
 Mobility as a Service can only be successful if it offers the same level of
quality as the individual car and if it provides all types of journeys through
one platform;
 In order to achieve its full potential, the MaaS business model needs to
cover the whole European area based on similar standards to reduce costs
and increase interoperability;
 Cities should not put out tenders for MaaS providers separately, but rather
act as enablers;
 The connection between customers and services is more important than
the connection between cars and infrastructure; C-ITS should address
capacity optimisation of the existing transport infrastructure.
WWW.OPTICITIES.COM
OPTICITIES STUDY VISITS AND
TUTORIAL SESSIONS: A
RETROSPECTIVE
In the last six months of the project,
all OPTICITIES partners actively
shared their knowledge, experiences
and results through various Tutorial
Sessions in Lyon, Glasgow, Madrid,
Birmingham, Torino, Brussels and
Gothenburg.
In case you missed the opportunity, it
is still possible to access the
OPTICITIES Stakeholder Platform
where you can download the
materials and expert presentations
from each of the tutorial sessions and
study visits. The aim of this section is
to give you a quick retrospective of
the ITS topics that were addressed.
27-28 APRIL: TUTORIAL SESSION AND
STUDY VISIT IN MADRID
The combined events organised by
CRTM aimed at presenting and
discussing
multimodal
traffic
management in large cities, decision
support tools, data standardisation,
interoperability apps and journey
assistants.
7-8 JUNE: ITS GLASGOW
As part of the ITS Europe conference
in Glasgow, OPTICITIES organised
an expert debate on Mobility as a
Service and a tutorial session
focusing on Decision Support Tools
and the user evaluation of the
interconnection
between
the
OPTICITIES multimodal navigator
and in–car GPS.
8 JULY: STUDY VISIT BIRMINGHAM
The Birmingham study visit offered
an introduction to the Birmingham
data management strategy, open
data platform, multimodal datasets
and potential for C-ITS; use of traffic
prediction in OCR, freight journey
time reliability and driver assist
services.
10 MARCH: STUDY VISIT LYON
The study visit in Lyon focused on
transport policy assessment, massive
road
data
creation,
live
demonstrations of traffic prediction,
the multimodal travel planner, realtime car pooling and service
continuity between smartphone and
in-car systems.
WWW.OPTICITIES.COM
11 OCTOBER: FINAL TUTORIAL
SESSION BRUSSELS
OPTICITIES TV: ENJOY OUR FINAL
PROJECT VIDEO
Complementing the high level debate
of 10 October, the final OPTICITIES
Tutorial Session in Brussels provided
a wider overview of the project
achievements, including the Open
ITS system, multimodal dataset and
standardisation,
interoperable
traveller information applications,
interconnection between in-car GPS
and multimodal navigator, evaluation
and user acceptance, one hour traffic
prediction, routes management and
optimisation of urban freight.
20 OCTOBER: STUDY VISIT TORINO
The OPTICITIES study visit in Torino
presented and demonstrated the
multimodal real time urban navigator
TUeTO,
the
Carpooling
Hub
(aggregator of car pooling services
operating in the metropolitan area)
and the Multimodal Network Map (a
Decision Support Tool for the Torino
metropolitan area).
27 OCTOBER: STUDY VISIT
GOTHENBURG
The final OPTICITIES study visit took
place in Gothenburg and provided
live demos of the Soft Prio tram
switching, the road works application
and information handling for traffic
and the multimodal travel planner.
On the media section of the project
website you can find sixteen videos
in total which visualise a wide range
of ITS tools and services that were
developed in the framework of the
project, addressing for example data
collection (Lyon), urban freight
navigation (Wroclaw), road works
management (Gothenburg) and early
warning systems for public transport
(Madrid).
One of the recent additions include
the final OPTICITIES project video,
which presents an animated overview
of the main ITS innovations that were
introduced by the partner cities, and
a video produced by CSI Piemonte
on the mapping of multimodal
mapping transport services.
WWW.OPTICITIES.COM
OPTICITIES TRANSFERABILITY HANDBOOK:
Recommendations for planning and
implementing urban ITS
The Transferability Handbook has been
elaborated as a toolbox targeting cities and
service providers looking for references,
concrete experiences and contacts. It
presents a digest of OPTICITIES key results,
learning points and success factors in a userfriendly format. It aims at enhancing the take-up process of OPTICITIES results.
Detailed information is compiled in a set of Deployment Guidelines available
online on the OPTICITIES Stakeholder Forum.
The Handbook addresses the following thematic areas and specific topics:



DATA CREATION AND USE


OPEN ITS SYSTEM




DECISION SUPPORT TOOLS

FREIGHT INFORMATION SERVICES
TRAVELLER INFORMATION SERVICES
EVALUATION
Multimodal Data Integration In Large
Cities
Road Works Data Collection
New Tools for Freight Data Monitoring
Mobility Data Portal
Public-Private Contractual
Arrangements
Multimodal Urban Mobility Database
Model and Architecture
Multimodal Network Map For Planning
Multimodal Network Management
Integrated Soft Priority For Public
Transport
Traffic Prediction In Traffic
Management Centres


Dangerous Goods Monitoring
Freight Navigator



Multimodal Real-Time Urban Navigator
Interfaces Smartphones/In-Car
Navigation Systems
Real-Time Car Pooling


Pre-Design and Evaluation
Transport Policies In Urban Areas
You can download a digital version of the handbook here, printed copies will be
distributed at relevant EU transport and smart cities events in the course of 2016
and 2017.
WWW.OPTICITIES.COM
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