Dynamic Road Lane Management Study A Smart City Application

Our SMART CITY contribution is transportation-orien ted in that it proposes a dynamic road lane managem ent system in order to share appropriately the space devoted t o traffic. After a historical view of a series of solutions from physical to ICT supported, we present our proposal extensively supported b y up-to-date ICT. Following a main presentation, we describe the system architecture and its working conditions. Then, we present th e proposed simulator designed to study operating an d driver’s conditions with respect to the new traffic signs proposed. We also de scribe a Mock-up technology validation and give pre liminary information on in-thefield deployment. This paper is an extended version of the paper [29] awarded at the IEEE 3rd International Conference on Advanced Logistics and Transport (ICALT'2014) conference. Keywords— smart city; ambient intelligence; ubiquitou s computing; data vitalization; location-based serv ices; mobile internet; internet of things; dynamic lane allocation; simulations; ac ceptability studies INTRODUCTION In recent years, the “Smart City” concept has emerg ed to describe how investments in human and social capital and modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in frastructure and e-services fuel sustainable growth and quality of life for its inhabitants and workers. In Smart City systems, two opposite approaches can be used: 1/ Elaboration of an opportunistic system allowing access to collected information and its “vitalization” by integr ation – interaction – aggregation in a non-predeter mined way; 2/ Well-defined systems able to solve identified problems, working in a specific clearly-defined and modeled situation . In the first case, according to Z. Xiong [1], the “ Smart City” principle in opportunistic perception i s based on the concept of “Data Vitalization”. The idea is to give data life, to combine separated data by avoiding information islands, to build a combination between each type of data, and to increase uti lization of data. The main issue concerns sharing a nd integration of data that were initially separated due to their types and dif ferent collection methods. New contextual access an d use of these data are fundamental in relation with emerging non-expected sit uat ons. While in our international China-France academic re search project we study these two approaches, in th is paper we focus on explaining the second approach oriented to a precis e Smart City system, the goal of which is to solve a particular problem related to traffic management in confined circulation infra structure, avoiding congestion by better allocation of traffic lanes. In this case “data vitalization” is not the main goal. In our ca se, we have chosen to study the design and implemen tation of a system, allowing appropriate use by private and professional vehicle s and their drivers of a limited circulation infras tructure by extensive use of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies). Consequently, our main contributions to this paper ar : 1/ Identification of main characteristics and design of an intelligent road lane management system as a Smart City applica tion; 2/ Integration of ICT and appropriate user in terfaces in the system, allowing effective communication and collaboration among actors; 3/ Development of a simulator validat ing system function designed to study drivers’ acceptability and security of proposed User Interfaces, mainly oriented towar ds new traffic sign understanding and interpretation in dynamic driving cond itions; 4/ Technology validation of main ICT princi ples used in the mock-up, namely: Location-Based Services (LBS) and Internet of Things (IoT). The next sections of this paper are structured as f ollows. After a state-of-the-art in dynamic managem ent of road lines from historical, concrete and bibliographical points of view, we present the main characteristics of our ex tensive ICT-based dynamic road lane management system. Then, we describe its architecture from physical and digital point of vie ws with the ICT technologies used. The following section is devoted to pres enting the simulator with its organization, functio nalities and main utilizations. A technology validation mock-up is explained in the next section, while the last section is devoted to presenting the results and the in-the-field deployment process. This paper end s with some conclusions and expected prospective ac tions. I. STATE-OF-THE-ART IN DYNAMIC MANAGEMENT OF ROAD LANES Our study concerns dynamic management of road traff ic, which is regularly increasing both in towns and outside built-up urban areas. The first approach designed to allow inc rease in traffic leads to solutions such as increas ing the number of lanes, while the second approach aims at segmenting traffic acco rding to categories (private vehicles, heavy vehicl es, public transportation, priority vehicles) by proposing specific developmen t a d traffic rules, with, in particular, the creat ion of specialized lanes (bus, tram, trolley). This second choice can lead to sati sf ctory solutions provided that there is sufficien t space.