Pictures of the Future       Fall 2005

The Road to Telematic Travel

Germany, summer 2006. Soccer fans will be out in force for the World Cup games—not only in the stadiums but also, unfortunately, on roads throughout the country. As a result, the Ruhr region, Europe’s largest conurbation, and greater Berlin will have to deal with an even heavier traffic flow than usual. The volume of traffic in these areas is already massive. Around six million people are on the road in the Ruhr region every day, five million of them coming in from surrounding areas.

To prevent massive traffic jams, especially during the World Cup, Siemens is developing and operating the Ruhrpilot traffic management solution in the Ruhr region—on behalf of ProjektRuhr GmbH—and the Traffic Management Center (VMZ) in Berlin. "These traffic management centers are the meeting points of all traffic data, but that’s not all," says Hans-Joachim Schade, head of business development for Intelligent Traffic Systems at Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services. "Here, besides managing the flow of all private vehicles and public transportation systems, we also offer passengers and drivers extensive information to make their travel simpler, safer and more comfortable. Without state-of-the-art traffic management, a major sports event of these dimensions could no longer be held in a large urban area."

Dr. Thomas Lackner, head of the Telematics Business Competence Center at Siemens, is bullish on telematics. "The outlook for traffic telematics solutions is good," he says. "We estimate that the global market volume for this technology in 2004 was around 27 billion euros, and that future growth will average six percent annually." Growth opportunities for individual segments of this vast market will vary greatly between 2003 and 2007, from three percent for parking guidance systems and railroad automation to seven percent for passenger car navigation and toll management, and as much as 15 percent for truck toll and fleet management systems. Traffic management centers, like this one in Berlin, receive information about congestion, major public events, construction sites and the public transportation system.

Ruhrpilot integrates a large number of existing and newly installed systems. For example, it collates data from several thousand sensors that are concealed in road surfaces and on bridges and pylons to gather information on traffic density, direction and speed. All of this data is fed into a central computer that compiles it into a report on the current traffic situation. Information about congestion or road construction is then disseminated by means of radio announcements, mobile phones, navigation systems and the Internet. "Travelers can go online to find out the best possible travel route, using all the available means of transportation, and the time it will require. For example, a traveler might be directed to drive to a certain parking lot and then transfer to a bus or a subway," says Ludwig Ramachers, who is in charge of the Ruhrpilot project and its application. The project consortium is led by Siemens and also includes PTV AG, the German Data Association (DDG) and the Essen public transportation company, Essener Verkehrs-AG.

Another advantage of Ruhrpilot is that the information it communicates is continuously updated. Previously, traffic forecasts were of ten out of date. In many cases, a radio warning of congestion on the road refers to the end rather than the beginning of a bottleneck. By contrast, Ruhrpilot uses simulation calculations to forecast traffic developments up to 60 minutes in advance and provide a general overview of the traffic situation in the coming two weeks. According to Schade, this intelligence system offers other advantages as well, "Thanks to our simulation calculations, we can reduce congestion, bottlenecks and accidents by up to 20 % and CO₂ of emissions by as much as 10 %." Ruhrpilot can also improve the capacity utilization of highways and railroads.

"The Ruhrpilot project was made possible by public financing and a public-private part nership, which is handling operation," says Ramachers. He believes that this kind of cooperation between governments and private companies is a promising model for the future, especially in the area of traffic management. Hanns Ludwig Brauser, CEO of Projekt Ruhr GmbH, which commissioned Ruhrpilot, is equally satisfied with the results. "Ruhrpilot isn’t just a vision, it’s a practical plan for the future. The solutions it provides are benefiting passenger car traffic as well as local public transportation throughout the entire Ruhr region. Never before has a system anywhere electronically registered comprehensive information about the entire public and private traffic situation for a region of this size."

Seattle’s Flexible Tolls. Many traffic experts are convinced that traffic can also be managed through drivers’ wallets, and they cite the London traffic toll as a good example. In a few years, when drivers switch on their car radios they may hear announcements like the following: "Between 4 and 6 p.m., the use of Highway A1 will cost four euros instead of the present two. However, the toll for Expressway 3 has been reduced from two euros to one." A pilot project in the densely populated Puget Sound region near Seattle, Washington, is investigating whether such measures can persuade drivers to use cheaper stretches of highway and thus smooth out the flow of traffic. As part of the project, Siemens set up a toll system with state-of-the-art mobile radio and satellite technology in early 2005.

Small computers inside vehicles, known as onboard units or OBUs, record the vehicle’s position in real time via GPS and use GSM mobile radio to communicate with the central management system. Personnel at the center archive the position data, manage user accounts and prepare monthly overviews of highway use. The highway network has been divided into 8,000 segments in order to create a precise image of drivers’ behavior on the road. The system can identify with great precision which segments are being most heavily used, and it uses this information to calculate the tolls for each individual driver. As part of the test, 500 initial participants, chosen to be demographically representative, received a virtual sum of money from which the tolls they owe will be deducted. If the drivers act intelligently and always use the cheapest route available, they will have some virtual money left over at the end of the test, which they will be able to exchange for a cash payment. The project’s operators hope this will encourage the drivers to use realistic criteria when they’re on the road. If they have chosen their routes according to cooperative criteria, they’ll be the richer for it.

Telematic systems can also improve the punctuality of public transportation services. In London, for instance, the 30 private transport companies that operate the city’s famous red buses are off to a good start. Through the "Transport for London" project, an operation management system registers how punctually the buses arrive at their stops and the quality of their transport services. The transport companies are assessed according to these criteria when they apply to renew their licenses for certain bus routes.

To ensure the project’s success, Transport for London ordered an operation management system from Siemens that can monitor more than 8,000 London city buses and locate them via GPS. That’s no easy feat, because London’s bus network is one of the largest in the world, covering some 700 routes and transporting around six million passengers every workday. "The system will go into operation in part of the network within two years," says Rudolf Henneberger, project manager at Siemens VDO Automotive. "After that, Siemens will need another two years to equip all of the buses with the new technology. Passengers will then be able to use the electronic message boards at some 2,000 bus stops throughout London to find out when the next bus will arrive. Passengers will also enjoy shorter travel times."

Paperless Ticketing in Dresden. On local public transport in Dresden, Germany, passengers can already travel within the city without having to buy tickets or keep complicated rate models in mind. That’s because Siemens and Dresden’s local public transport systems are testing the world’s first paperless ticketing system, which requires passengers only to step into and out of the buses and trains. A predecessor system from Siemens called EasyRide was tested a few years ago in Basel and Geneva (see Pictures of the Futures, Spring 2004, Getting Out of a Jam). In Dresden, 3,000 people are now testing the usefulness of the new technology as part of the Allfa (Alles fahren or Ride Everything) pilot project. "For the first time, we want to create a fully automatic registration system for passengers, who won’t need to do a thing themselves," says Willi Brändli, project manager at Siemens’ Switzerland Business Innovation Center. "Each vehicle automatically recognizes a passenger who has an electronic ticket, using the be-in/beout principle. When the passenger enters the vehicle, signal antennas installed near the doors activate the tickets, which are normally in an energy-efficient standby mode. An electronic stamp is used to link the ticket data with the vehicle data." During the ride, a separate access system communicates with electronic tickets to bill the passenger correctly for the trip. The passenger is billed for total travel costs at the end of the month.