Policy-aware assessment of environmental impacts from transport in smart cities

Abstract

Abstract:In recent research a performance evaluation framework for traffic management and Intelligent Transport Systems was developed, consisting of a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the themes of traffic efficiency, safety, pollution reduction and social inclusion, all of which are key components of a smart city. One of the innovative elements of these KPIs is their ability to consider the transport policy layer, in the sense that the evaluation of the suitability and effectiveness of different strategies and ITS options is calculated in relation to the decision maker's high-level transport policy rather than objectively. This is achieved through weighting factors, whereby more important policy objectives are weighted more heavily in the calculation. But while the theoretical framework is ready to accommodate the policy layer, no methodology to determine the values of the weighting factors has been developed so far. The present study, therefore, concentrates on the development and testing of such a methodology, focusing on the environmental impact aspect of urban mobility management and ITS in the context of smart cities. The development is based on existing policy objectives and legislation in different cities and countries, while testing is carried out using the purposedeveloped CONDUITS_DST software with data from microsimulation models before and after the implementation of a bus priority signalling system in Brussels, Belgium. The results show that the method captures the expected effects, but also that it is able to reflect policy objectives and deliver evaluation results in relation to their alignment with those.

Predictive road safety impact assessment of traffic management policies and measures

“…For instance, in the case of Brussels, previous work by the authors (Kaparias et al, 2016) has found that, despite great benefits in terms of the mobility efficiency of public transport passengers, the immediate introduction of the public transport priority system will inevitably have a negative short-term effect on pollution, mainly due to the reduction of the green time for car traffic. This will be likely gradually mitigated by changes in route and mode choice, but as is commonly the case with the procurement procedures of such schemes, resources to estimate such effects that are beyond the direct goal of the scheme (i.e.…”

“…The outcome has been a predictive evaluation tool for road traffic management and ITS, called CONDUITS_DST, in which two of the four KPI categories have been integrated to date: the pollution generated by the various transport modes in the form of emissions of both global and local pollutants, and the traffic efficiency, expressed through measures such as travel time and network reliability. Preliminary testing of the tool in three European cities (Brussels, Stuttgart and Tel Aviv) using existing microscopic traffic simulation models has, again, confirmed the validity of the methodology and has demonstrated the viability, usefulness and timeliness of the approach (Eden et al, 2012;Eden et al, 2013;Kaparias et al, 2016).…”

“…Naturally, this only relates to the INTERV and CS quantities, as ACD would not be available before implementation of the scheme. The values of the weights w l , w se and w m are the policy-aware element of the KPIs, and can be set by the decision-maker to reflect high-level policy objectives, just like it is done in the case of the pollution KPI (Kaparias et al, 2016).…”

“…The potential side-effects on pollution and traffic safety, however, have not been part of the administration's initial planning tender, and from the point of view of the stakeholders, a CONDUITS_DST case study towards those effects could bring significant added value. The first stage of this case study (Kaparias et al, 2016) has dealt with the side-effect of pollution, and the analysis has concluded that emission increases of the order of 4-6% would be expected as a result of the implementation. So in this next stage, it is the safety side-effect that is evaluated.…”