Hossam Hassanein
Professor and Director, School of Computing, Queen's University
Date/Time: September 17, 2024. 13:20-14:00
Title: Vehicular Edge Services
Abstract: The rise of Autonomous and Connected Vehicles (AVs and CVs) has created a need for innovative edge computing solutions to meet their growing demands and leverage their computational power. By utilizing the unused resources of these vehicles, we can offload intensive tasks for parallel processing at the extreme edge, drastically reducing latency. However, since AVs and CVs are user-owned and highly dynamic, their availability can be intermittent, leading to uncertainty and impacting Quality of Service (QoS). To tackle this, we predict vehicle availability to adapt to the dynamic nature of vehicular edge computing and integrate these predictions into resource allocation. We also enhance reliability by developing a reputation scoring system that assesses vehicle reliability based on past performance, allowing for proactive task replication. Additionally, we address the growing demands of AVs and CVs by enabling quality-aware offloading of tasks related to cooperative perception, improving traffic situational awareness. By minimizing perception redundancy and maximizing the Value of Information (VOI), our strategies improve road safety, traffic management, and the overall driving experience in intelligent transportation systems.
Marc Figuls
Managing Partner, Factual-Consulting
Date/Time: September 18, 2024. 13:30-13:50
Title: How to become a bike-friendly city? Lane Patrol as the international standard for cycling network planning
Approximately 1.19M road traffic deaths occur annually, with over half of the fatalities involving vulnerable road users, such as cyclists and pedestrians. The CycleRAP methodology is introduced as an evidence-based solution to assess the safety of urban infrastructure, aiding policymakers in prioritizing interventions to improve road safety and the Lane Patrol tool complements this model, enabling automatic image collection, analysis of key parameters using AI techniques from the assessment side, and simulations of potential improvements in the cycling network while becoming an international standard for planning safer cycling networks that has been applied in very different use cases at worldwide level such as Madrid, Skopje, Montevideo and Abu Dhabi.
Josep Laborda
CEO & Managing Partner, Factual-Consulting
Date/Time: September 18, 2024. 13:50-14:20
Title: Getting Ready for Autonomous Vehicles: the Smart Road Infrastructure Classification Index
Abstract: The session will introduce the index developed by FACTUAL and the International Road Federation (IRF), which evaluates the readiness level of road infrastructures for the commercial operation of fully autonomous vehicles. The aim is to collaborate with road infrastructure managers globally to establish the SRI as the first worldwide standard for assessing roads under consistent parameters.
Josep Maria Salanova Grau
Principal Researcher, Hellenic Institute of Transport / Center for Research and Technology Hellas
Date/Time: September 19, 2024. 08:30-09:15
Title: Innovative tools and data supporting decision and mobility policy making
Our cities are constantly facing complex challenges that need to be solved by achieving consensus and common understanding between the involved actors. While the owner of the problem is the society, the individual citizens, the solution comes from the academic or the private sectors, and the legislator for its application is the public sector. So, to provide the right solutions to the real problems, these actors should be well aligned. Data collection and analysis is key to achieve this common understanding, extracting information and knowledge to identify and quantify the problems, but also visualizing their dynamics to better communicate them with the other members of the eco-system. A multi-actor approach is needed, supported by innovative tools able to analyze these dynamics and create a space of solutions to stimulate co-creation exercises within mature living lab infrastructures. At the same time, these tools should, to some extent, allow the public sector to experiment with them, without the need of a specific expertise or external support. In this way policy making will be more flexible and able to follow market trends and the pace of the private sector. Cities should be the drivers of innovation to ensure that the implementation of the solutions is aligned with their mission. Innovative data sources are the fuel for these tools, but other aspects are also key, such as digital literacy and the end-user mindset. Thus, orchestration of large-scale pilot implementations following the living lab approach and achieving citizens engagement is the way to transform our cities into liveable spaces. Empowering citizens will transform them into ambassadors of our solutions and, with the right policy for its implementation, the scalability will be secured. The Thessaloniki Smart Mobility Living Lab is an example of an active eco-system where the mobility actors collaborate to improve the quality of life of the citizens of Thessaloniki. It strongly focuses in applying data to knowledge techniques to feed a decision theater supporting decision and policy making for both private and public entities and actors. The raw data ranges from floating vehicle and Bluetooth data to track anonymized user trajectories, to traffic and telecommunication data to monitor aggregated flows and densities of vehicles and persons. Dedicated tools provide traffic information and management services, enriched and personalized multi-modal routing and navigation services, fast policy making for micro and active shared mobility, and decision support for shared and on-demand mobility systems design, among many others.
