Sicurezza ferroviaria e Infrastruttura per la Mobilità applicate ai Passaggi a LivEllo 

Funded by: POR CReO 2007 - 2013 - Regione Toscana

Start date 28 December 2012     End date 28 December 2014

Keywords: Urban mobility; Smart cameras; Traffic monitoring; Intelligent Transportation Systems; Railway

SIMPLE goal is to implement a prototype that aims at increasing railway safety in the area around the level crossings and at enhancing the management of the traffic flow in urban areas by integrating the level crossing with the city mobility system.

Regarding the first objective, currently, the railroad crossings in Italy are not managed with any technological security system; therefore, the introduction of sensors based on radar technology is a remarkable advancement compared to the state of art. For the second objective, SIMPLE platform is an innovative ICT solution, which can collect heterogeneous data regarding people's mobility, provided either by actual physical infrastructure, such as those produced by mobility and transport (e.g. sensors, cameras, and RFID) and by the virtual traces left on the web.

SIMPLE system is based on several key components and modules:

  1. Railway Safety
    • Radar sensors to monitor railway crossing;
    • Advanced sensors in support to the radar sensors (including cameras);
    • Automatic detection of dangerous situations (movable or stationary obstacles on the railway line, mechanical failures or level crossing system malfunctions);
    • Data integration and intelligent systems to activate the appropriate emergency procedures, related to the severity of the emergency detected.
  2. Mobility management
    • Data collection about the train transits to estimate the evolution of the railway crossing and to provide appropriate information;
    • Detection and storage of the railway level crossing status, to predict the waiting time based both on statistical and real-time data;
    • Acquisition of the train timetables and their positions both estimated and actual to integrate them with the information from traffic forecasting algorithms;
    • Sensors and hardware devices for collection, transmission and storage of heterogeneous data (vehicular flows in the area surrounding the railway crossing, traffic congestion level near the railway crossing, waiting time, etc).
  3. Web-based software system for the collection of data from social networks
    • Service platform providing travel time information, alternative routes computation, real-time warnings about critical situations in the monitored area, length of the queued vehicles nearby the railway crossing. These services are provided both via the web (portals, social networks) and via variable message road signs placed in the monitored area;
    • Software platform for modeling and simulation of the monitored area, to assess the impact on the area and to predict the evolution of rail and road mobility during normal situations and emergencies.

Signals and Images Lab role in SIMPLE Project

The research team of the Signal and Images Lab involved in SIMPLE project focused on:

  • Study and development of sensors for intelligent Transportation Systems;
  • Smart cameras and computer vision for urban mobility analysis;
  • Pervasive systems for the evaluation of vehicular flows in urban scenarios.

 

 

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