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Intelligent Mobility in Smart Cities

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Computing and Artificial Intelligence".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 January 2022) | Viewed by 19834

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Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Delft University of Technology, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands;
Department of Transport Telematics, Faculty of Transportation Sciences, Czech Technical University in Prague, Konviktská 20, 111000 Praha
Interests: artificial intelligence for smart cities

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Guest Editor
Department of Research Management of Platforms / CIIRC. Faculty of Transportation Sciences, Czech Technical University in Prague, Konviktská 20,111000 Praha, Czech Republic
Interests: telematics for smart cities

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Guest Editor
Department of Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Transportation Sciences, Czech Technical University in Prague, Konviktská 20, 111000 Praha, Czech Republic
Interests: applied mathematics in transport and logistics; smart cities

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Urban areas are growing all over the world. As a consequence, a larger volume of people and goods has to move to a larger number of different locations on a daily basis. This leads to more traffic congestion, longer commutes, use of different travel modalities, and increasing pollution. There is thus a need for more intelligent transportation and smart infrastructure, as well as changes in travel behavior. The following topics are under research:

  • To measure the traffic streams, many sensors have been installed on the surface of the road, in smart cameras, smart phones or even vehicles. The sensed data can be stored and processed in a local, central or distributed way in an (semi-)automated way. The Internet of Things and cooperative vehicles will play an increasing role in communication in smart cities;
  • To model (future) traffic streams, a smart city can be simulated and used as a testbed for new routing algorithms and as a living lab environment;
  • In many applications, car drivers and automated cars are modeled as agents, living in a virtual environment. In these virtual environments, agents share common data, process these data, and consult individual car drivers;

Given the increasing dust pollution in urban regions, it can be expected that less polluting transport modalities will be used, such as electrical cars and bikes. New green areas must be designed, and green routes will be designed via green areas.;

  • A smart city should be prepared for disasters. A disaster plan should be available, including an evacuation plan along disaster routes, and this in cooperation among particular city domains such as transportation, energy management, water and waste management, and others;
  • In order to effectively decrease the negative impact of urbanization, municipalities shall use policies to address travel behavior in a way that shifts (in time and space) or even decreases travel demand. This can be done, for example, through digitalization of activities (home office, eGovernment) and better accessibility of activities through more effective urban planning.

Prof. Leon Rothkrantz
Prof. Miroslav Svitek
Prof. Ondrej Pribyl
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • intelligent mobility
  • sensor city
  • travel behavior
  • green city
  • disaster plans

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Editorial

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5 pages, 518 KiB  
Editorial
Intelligent Mobility in Smart Cities
by Ondrej Pribyl, Miroslav Svitek and Leon Rothkrantz
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(7), 3440; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12073440 - 28 Mar 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2282
Abstract
In recent years, the term “Smart Cities” has become popular in Europe and abroad [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Mobility in Smart Cities)
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Research

Jump to: Editorial

20 pages, 6319 KiB  
Article
Interdisciplinary Urban Tunnel Control within Smart Cities
by Ondřej Přibyl, Pavel Přibyl and Miroslav Svítek
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(22), 10950; https://doi.org/10.3390/app112210950 - 19 Nov 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2255
Abstract
Nowadays, urban road tunnels are considered to be independent entities within a city. Their interactions with the rest of the city and vice versa are usually not considered and, if they are, are only considered in a limited way (for example, through the [...] Read more.
Nowadays, urban road tunnels are considered to be independent entities within a city. Their interactions with the rest of the city and vice versa are usually not considered and, if they are, are only considered in a limited way (for example, through the nearest traffic controller). Typically, only the traffic parameters and not the environmental impacts are considered. This paper has two major objectives. First, we provide a systemic view on a road urban tunnel. The major focus is on the interfaces between the tunnel and the rest of the city and the way they will be managed. We are providing a tool to take into consideration a sustainable development of a tunnel (i.e., not only traffic flow parameters such as average speed, but also environmental and societal characteristics). This model expresses the actual traffic situation in a monetary form (i.e., cost of congestions). The second objective is to provide a new road urban tunnel control approach that follows the original methodology and systemic view described in the paper. If the tunnel is controlled autonomously, which corresponds to the current state-of-the-art in many cities, the algorithm decides to close it based on only local parameters. However, the proposed new algorithm takes into consideration not only the traffic situation in the tunnel (expressed by the parameter traffic density), but also the actual traffic situation within the city (expressed by its level of service (LOS)). This allows more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable oriented road urban tunnel management. The described algorithm is demonstrated on a specific example of the tunnel complex Blanka in Prague. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Mobility in Smart Cities)
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17 pages, 3167 KiB  
Article
Methodology of Functional and Technical Evaluation of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems and Its Practical Application
by Zdeněk Lokaj, Martin Šrotýř, Miroslav Vaniš and Michal Mlada
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(20), 9700; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11209700 - 18 Oct 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1939
Abstract
In the area of smart cities, great emphasis is placed on many different fields such as energetics, information systems, and transportation. All of these should lead to a simplification of life thanks to smart technologies. If we talk about the transportation field, the [...] Read more.
In the area of smart cities, great emphasis is placed on many different fields such as energetics, information systems, and transportation. All of these should lead to a simplification of life thanks to smart technologies. If we talk about the transportation field, the main issues related to this area are safety, traffic efficiency, or the environment. Another condition is the successful acceptance of any new technology by its users. Cooperative systems prove to be a suitable solution for these issues, especially in urban areas. Today, pilot implementations of cooperative systems in European countries are being carried out. However, before they are put into full operation, they need to be tested, evaluated, and assessed. This article focuses on the latter two points, i.e., evaluation and assessment of the cooperative systems. For this purpose, a methodology was created, which describes the procedure chosen in the evaluation and assessment of cooperative systems in the Czech Republic and a demonstration of its use by example. The methodology is focused on three main areas, which in this case are functional evaluation, user acceptance, and impact assessment. For the area of user acceptance, the main source was questionnaires, impact assessment relied on measured data while functional evaluation was based on discussions with the drivers, evaluating the cooperative systems, the measured data, and the expert observations. All collected and measured data were then processed and some of the results of the evaluation of the selected service are presented at the end of this article. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Mobility in Smart Cities)
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17 pages, 5738 KiB  
Article
Comprehensive Analysis of Housing Estate Infrastructure in Relation to the Passability of Firefighting Equipment
by Pavel Vrtal, Tomáš Kohout, Jakub Nováček and Zdeněk Svatý
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(20), 9587; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11209587 - 14 Oct 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2075
Abstract
The article focuses on the assessment and evaluation of the passability in densely populated parts of cities with multi-storey housing estates, in terms of the operation of the integrated rescue system (IRS) in the Czech Republic. The aim of the research is to [...] Read more.
The article focuses on the assessment and evaluation of the passability in densely populated parts of cities with multi-storey housing estates, in terms of the operation of the integrated rescue system (IRS) in the Czech Republic. The aim of the research is to minimize the arrival times to conduct the intervention as efficiently as possible. The presented problem is caused by unsystematic development of housing estates and the emergence of secondary problems in the form of inability to reach the place of intervention by the larger IRS vehicles. The vision presented in this document presents a systematic approach to improve the serviceability of individual blocks of flats. The main aim is to ensure passability, even for the largest equipment, such as fire engine ladders. Detailed mapping of the selected sites by drones, construction of their digital model, and subsequent virtual verification of the passability by specific vehicle models on identified access roads was performed. The results obtained by this procedure can then be implemented in the navigation of the fire safety forces and facilitate their arrival at the site of intervention. At the end, specific ways are presented in which the whole system can be modified to be able to intuitively change and choose individual access routes in real time, based on the current situation in the area. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Mobility in Smart Cities)
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23 pages, 13308 KiB  
Article
A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach for Ideal Business Location Identification
by Salman Ahmed Shaikh, Mohsin Memon and Kyoung-Sook Kim
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(11), 4983; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11114983 - 28 May 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4664
Abstract
Location has always been a primary concern for business startups to be successful. Therefore, much research has focused on the problem of identification of an ideal business site for a new business. The process of ideal business site selection is complex and depends [...] Read more.
Location has always been a primary concern for business startups to be successful. Therefore, much research has focused on the problem of identification of an ideal business site for a new business. The process of ideal business site selection is complex and depends on a number of criteria or factors. Since the ultimate goal of all businesses is to increase customer footprints and to thus increase sales, criteria including traffic accessibility, visibility, ease of access, vehicle parking, customers availability, etc. play important roles. In other words, we can say that optimal business site selection is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. MCDM is used to identify an optimal solution or decision out of many alternatives by utilizing a number of criteria. In mathematics, there exist a number of structured techniques for organizing and analyzing complex decisions, for instance, AHP, ANP, TOPSIS, etc. In this work, we present a hybrid of two such techniques to solve the MCDM problem for an optimal business site selection given a set of candidate sites. The proposed approach is based on the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and TOPSIS (The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) approaches. The reason for using the proposed hybrid approach is multi-fold. The hybrid approach reduces the computational complexity and require less manual effort, thus improving the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed approach. Given a set of candidate locations for a new business, the proposed approach ranks the candidates. Thus, the candidate locations with higher ranks are identified as suitable or ideal. The approach comes up with the ranking of all of the candidate locations, thus giving business managers room to make calculated decisions. To show the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a detailed step-by-step case study is given to identify an ideal location in New York City for a new gas station. Furthermore, an experimental evaluation is also presented using a number of real New York City datasets. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Mobility in Smart Cities)
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24 pages, 1331 KiB  
Article
Exploring Hybrid-Multimodal Routing to Improve User Experience in Urban Trips
by Diego O. Rodrigues, Guilherme Maia, Torsten Braun, Antonio A. F. Loureiro, Maycon L. M. Peixoto and Leandro A. Villas
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(10), 4523; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11104523 - 15 May 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2463
Abstract
Millions of individuals rely on urban transportation every day to travel inside cities. However, it is not clear how route parameters (e.g., traffic conditions, waiting times) influence users when selecting a particular route option for their trips. These parameters play an important role [...] Read more.
Millions of individuals rely on urban transportation every day to travel inside cities. However, it is not clear how route parameters (e.g., traffic conditions, waiting times) influence users when selecting a particular route option for their trips. These parameters play an important role in route recommendation systems, and most of the currently available applications omit them. This work introduces a new hybrid-multimodal routing algorithm that evaluates different routes that combine different transportation modes. Hybrid-multimodal routes are route options that might consist of more than one transportation mode. The motivation to use different transportation modes is to avoid unpleasant trip segments (e.g., traffic jams, long walks) by switching to another mode. We show that the possibility of planning a trip with different transportation modes can lead to improvement of cost, duration, and quality of experience urban trips. We outline the main research contributions of this work, as (i) an user experience model that considers time, price, active transportation (i.e., non-motorized transport) acceptability, and traffic conditions to evaluate the hybrid routes; and, (ii) a flow clustering technique to identify relevant mobility flows in low-sampled datasets for reducing the data volume and allow the execution of the analytical evaluation. (i) uses a Discrete Choice Analyses framework to model different variables and estimate a value for user experience in the trip. (ii) is a methodology to aggregate mobility flows by using Spatio-temporal Clustering and identify the most relevant of these flows using Curvature Analysis. We evaluate the proposed hybrid-multimodal routing algorithm with data from the Green and Yellow Taxis of New York, Citi Bike NYC data, and other publicly available datasets; and, different APIs, such as Uber and Google Directions. The results reveal that selecting hybrid routes can benefit passengers by saving time or reducing costs, and sometimes both, when compared to routes using a single transportation mode. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Mobility in Smart Cities)
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32 pages, 48029 KiB  
Article
A Geometrical Structure-Based New Approach for City Logistics System Planning with Cargo Bikes and Its Application for the Shopping Malls of Budapest
by Dávid Lajos Sárdi and Krisztián Bóna
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(8), 3300; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11083300 - 7 Apr 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2687
Abstract
Nowadays, cargo bikes are seeing an ever-greater role in city logistics with an increasing number of deliveries, and it is essential to examine their future role in green and smart cities. In our work, we examine the application of cargo bikes in the [...] Read more.
Nowadays, cargo bikes are seeing an ever-greater role in city logistics with an increasing number of deliveries, and it is essential to examine their future role in green and smart cities. In our work, we examine the application of cargo bikes in the city logistics system of the urban concentrated sets of delivery locations, focusing first on shopping malls, with the investigation of the geometrical structure of the logistics network. In the examined concept, the use of cargo bikes will be combined with electric trucks to make possible green deliveries of urban concentrated sets of delivery locations. In this paper, we present the experiences of the existing systems and the related research, the simulation model of the examined new concept with cargo bikes and its results, the graph theory-based geometric model of the examined city logistics system with graph theory-based notation, and the application of the new approach for Budapest. The main output of this research is the geometrical model of the urban concentrated sets of delivery locations and its application. Based on this geometrical model, it will be possible to decide about the suitability of the examined cargo bike-based city logistics concepts for given cities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Mobility in Smart Cities)
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