Smart city transport applications in Limassol, Cyprus: major enablers to sustainable urban mobility Apostolos Bizakisa, Athanasios G. Giannopoulos a a TREDIT (Transeuropean Consultants for Transport, Development and Information Technology) S.A, 78C Vryoulon & K. Karamanli St, Thessaloniki 55132, Greece Abstract This paper describes the rational, the objectives, the procedures and the methodologies followed in the case of Intelligent Transport applications for the city of Limassol in Cyprus. These applications are part of the ITS and C-ITS system that is being developed in the city but the main message here, is the need to coordinate any smart city transport applications with the objectives and provisions of the overall sustainable urban mobility objectives for the area. The paper presents first the existing ITS and C-ITS applications that are in operation in the area. It then presents the methodology followed, and the results obtained, for the definition of the new ITS measures and actions that were proposed. Then, the paper presents in summary form the measures that were defined as of high priority and of immediate implementation. At the end, an example is given of the functional specification sheet that is produced for each of the ITS application proposed. Keywords Smart-city, ITS, C-ITS, Limassol, SUMP, urban mobility with the use of digital and telecommunication 1. Introduction1 technologies for the benefit of its inhabitants and business can therefore also be perceived as an overall “strategy” to cope with the One of the main concepts of the current EU traditional urban problems such as traffic Transport policy is the concept of “sustainable congestion, pollution, energy consumption, urban mobility” which primarily means waste treatment, etc. It goes beyond the use of mobility that is fully aligned with the information and communication technologies environmental objectives that are in existence (ICT) for better resource use and less in the area concerned and more globally. By emissions and includes smarter urban transport consequence, every urban area in the EU has networks, upgraded water supply and waste to formulate and implement specific plans for disposal facilities and more efficient ways to all necessary infrastructures and services that light and heat buildings. It also means a more will transform its existing transport and interactive and responsive city administration, mobility system into a “sustainable” one. safer public spaces and meeting the needs of These plans are known as “sustainable urban an ageing population. mobility plans” or SUMPs. A “Smart city” can The European Commission has established be considered as a long-term vision of an the European innovation partnership on smart urban area aiming at reducing its cities and communities (EIP-SCC)2 which is environmental footprint and at creating better an initiative to bring together city quality of life based on a number of advanced administrations, industry, small businesses Information Technology (IT) applications. A (SMEs), banks, research institutions and smart city, as a place where traditional others. The partnership builds on the networks and services are made more efficient engagement of the public and private sector, the industry, and other interested groups to Models and Methods for Researching Information System in develop innovative solutions and participate in Transport, Dec. 11-12, St.Petersburg, Russia smart city governance in the EU. Clearly, the EMAIL: abizakis@tredit.gr (A. Bizakis); development and deployment of the so-called tgiannopoulos@tredit.gr (A. G. Giannopoulos). ORCID: 0000-0002-6494-0224 (A. G. Giannopoulos). Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) as ©️ 2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org) 2 See: https://eu-smartcities.eu/page/about 33 well as their interconnection through the 2. Existing ITS and C-ITS connected ITS – or C-ITS - is the main tool to utilize in building the transport systems of the systems smart cities of the future. The main ITS and C- 2.1. The Cyprus National ITS ITS services for urban mobility in the Master Plan forthcoming years in Europe are summarized in Figure 1. A significant issue will be, The Cyprus ITS national master plan has systems standardization and systems been conducted in the time period 2007 – 2009 integration and interoperability as, already, by the Public Works Department (PWD) of the very many EU urban areas have throughout Cyprus government. The plan included the years, implemented ITS applications in specific measures and systems in the areas of: accordance to SUMPs that they have developed previously.  Advanced Traffic Management. Limassol is the second largest urban area  Advanced Traveler Information in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban Services. population of approximately 185 000 and a metropolitan area one of approximately 240  Temporary ITS Systems for 000. The city completed its Sustainable Urban construction zones – mobile systems Mobility Plan in 2019 [2] and is moving now such as CCTV, Variable Message to its implementation which together with IT Signs, Radar Detectors to manage applications in other sectors (i.e., besides traffic around and through road transport) will lift it to smart-city status. The construction zones. proposed ITS measures for Limassol were  Priority to specific vehicles at fully aligned with the approved measures of Signalized junctions the Limassol SUMP study and they were reported and described in detail in Deliverable  Weigh in motion System (to facilitate 8 of the study, entitled “Technical Modelling the enforcement of limits to axle Report with Scenario Evaluation” and weight for lorries). specifically the preferred scenario 6.  Parking Availability System (provision This paper presents the main IT of information to road users on parking applications that were proposed for the city of availability in car parks that are Limassol together with the proposed steps and monitored by the system). procedures for their approval and implementation. The importance and value of  Public Transport – Ticketing System using Information Technology in developing (for the electronic issuing and C-ITS applications is important and has been validation of bus tickets). quantified at more than 50% of the total value  Public Transport – Fleet Management of the applications [4]. & Passenger Information Services.  ITS systems to be deployed for specific Bus Terminals (e.g., the new bus Terminal in Solomou Square, Nicosia). Since the formulation of the national ITS master plan, the following systems have been actually implemented in Cyprus (mainly in the capital city, Nicosia, but many of them in Limassol too):  Advanced Travelers Information Figure 1: Current EU supported ITS Services Services. The information provided in Urban Environment regards the traffic conditions, events, and incidents on the main road network of the island. All information produced 34 is made available by the web portal real-time. Such data are available and DIAVLOS (Figure 2). managed by the PWD Traffic Management and Control Center (TMCC) in Nicosia. Also, CCTV cameras for visual monitoring of traffic conditions and traffic incidents (limited geographical coverage) is installed. 2. Vehicle Actuated Traffic signalization system. The SCOOT system has been installed in 90 intersections in Cyprus which provides advanced functionalities for traffic-actuated traffic signals operation, traffic signal optimization in an arterial or a specific selected network. The system for all traffic signalized intersections in three (3) cities of Cyprus: Nicosia, Limassol and Larnaka is centrally managed by the PWD Control Room. Figure 2: Home Page of the Diavlos central 3. Bike reservation / bike sharing system. traffic information system A bike reservation/bike sharing system has been introduced in Cyprus and specifically  Public Transport: Fleet Management in Limassol. The service operator is & Passenger Information Services. NextBike Cyprus which enables cycling This system has been installed also for around the city. A public bike sharing the urban and rural bus lines of system is available in Limassol with bikes Limassol. available 24/7. A web-portal is available  Public Transport – Ticketing for users to reserve their bikes according System. The system includes also the to the real-time bike availability in various urban and rural bus lines of Limassol. stations within Limassol.  Parking Availability System. A real- 4. Bus Fleet Management System. An time parking availability system has Automated Vehicle Location (AVL) been installed for 5 Municipal parking System is installed in the entire urban and areas in Nicosia in the framework of rural bus fleet of Limassol. This system is DIAVLOS portal and this system is expected to optimize bus operation and fully expandable and foreseen to be time-schedules of the Limassol bus installed in the city of Limassol. operator, while the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Works will be able to 2.2. ITS in Limassol centrally monitor the service level of bus operation. The system is under initial A central traffic management and info- operation. mobility system set up in the city of Limassol 5. Bus Travelers Information System. manages the following sub-systems: Based on the installation of the Automatic Vehicle Location system in the entire 1. Traffic detection units recording traffic urban and rural bus fleet of Limassol, a flows, average speed and traffic dynamic travelers’ information system is composition. Permanent traffic counters installed for the provision of dynamic bus and Bluetooth devices have been installed time-schedules and bus arrivals. The throughout the years and in the framework dynamic information is made available via of DIAVLOS, MIELLE and on-board dynamic displays, LED signs at PRODROMOS projects. So, traffic levels, bus stops and a web-portal application. average speed, traffic composition and The system is on final implementation travel times are monitored and stored in stage. 35 6. Bus Ticketing System. An advanced bus sensitive locations by discouraging the ticketing system with smart cards and use of cars in these areas while at the web-service reservation/ purchase system same time facilitating the traffic around is installed for the Limassol Bus Operator. them and increasing of the availability The Ministry of Transport, and level of service of PT lines inside Communication and Works will be able to them. receive reports on the actual transaction of  Affecting the operating costs of car bus services. and/ or the costs of using a car. 7. National Single Access Point. A National Single Access Point for Cyprus is at  Increasing the road safety. procurement stage by the Ministry of  Improving environmental conditions. Transport, Communication and Works. The National Single Access Point was  Increasing the public space to citizens. expected to be completed by the end of 2020; the system is developed in For each of the above category of accordance with the requirements of the measures, specific proposed ITS measures EU Directives 2015/962/EU and were defined accompanied with supportive 2017/1926/EU regarding the provision of material such as maps, figures etc. This EU-wide real-time traffic information definition was based on the experience from services and EU-wide multimodal travel other European urban areas, the need to utilise information services respectively. As a and expand the existing ITS infrastructures in first step, this system will cover the TEN- the area as well the projects in existence or in T network of Cyprus, but it can be also the pipeline for the whole of the country. cover in future the transportation network Following the identification of the potential of Limassol (e.g., as an expansion project). ITS measures for each of the above categories, a prioritization exercise was carried out by 3. The proposed Smart City taking into account the expected benefits, best ITS practices, the local characteristics as well implementation in Limassol as the possible budget limitations. The 3.1. Methodology systems assessed as of “high priority” were the most suitable for short-term implementation The proposed ITS measures for smart-city and were recommended for application in Limassol had to be fully aligned with the parallel with the adoption of the relevant urban urban mobility measures proposed in the mobility measures of the preferred scenario 6 Limassol SUMP study (scenario 6) and build of the SUMP study. Since technology is upon the existing ITS infrastructures that were evolving, the time-horizon for the already in place. As such they fell in the implementation of ITS measures is relatively following categories of measures that were long. Usually for ITS, a seven-year time defined according to the (improvement) period is considered as the average time objectives they wanted to achieve: required from conception to implementation.  Improving the layout / structure of the So, the high priority systems should be at least Public Transport (PT) network to better expected to be implemented in the study area respond to the desire of movements and in a shorter time period depending also on the promote the complementarity of the implementation timeline of their related city’s transport systems. SUMP measures. Within each of the priority categories a  Improving - upgrading the PT services small number of “early winner” projects were offered. also selected. These were ITS measures that could be implemented in even shorter time  Affecting the costs of using the PT periods than the priority ones since they were system. without the need to fulfil many bureaucratic  Help develop emissions-free zones in pre-requisites or dependent on other environmentally sensitive or congested implementation activities. This overall areas in the city center and other methodology followed is shown in Figure 3. 36 should also provide bus priority at the SUMP Measures traffic signalized intersections in ITS Measures Prioritization High Priority Systems Early Winner Projects (Preferred Scenario 6) order to minimize intersection bus delay and increase bus schedule Functionalities reliability. Existing ITS Conditions ii. Bus Lane Enforcement System. This Implementation Area ITS measure will detect and penalize the private vehicle drivers who use High-Level Budget illegally the bus lane. C) Affecting the costs of using the PT Figure 3: The methodology for defining and system selecting the smart-city Limassol ITS i. Advanced ticketing system. This was measures. already proposed by previous studies and it was further refined and 3.2. Proposed high priority ITS delineated. It is currently being measures installed in Limassol. D) Development of emissions free zones According to the above methodology the i. Advanced Urban Traffic Control following ITS measures were assessed as of (UTC). The upgrading and re- high-priority per category: activation of a pre-existing SCOOT system (vehicle demand actuated) A) Improving the layout / structure of was proposed. This upgrading the PT network to better respond to consisted of: the procurement of new desire of movements and promoting the complementarity of transport traffic controllers; some additional systems: works of maintenance of the existing inductive loops; installation of new i. Dynamic Bus Display Signs. traffic detection units; new These were to be applied in: the telecommunication infrastructures; main bus terminal located in and finally, the expansion of the central CBD, transportation SCOOT system’s geographical centers / intermodal stations, Park coverage. & Ride places. The dynamic display signs should provide real- ii. Traffic Detection. Installation of time information about bus various types of devices for arrivals and bus departures in permanent recording of traffic flows, integration with the bus fleet traffic composition, average speeds management system currently (e.g. inductive loops, radars, cameras) installed in public transport as well as recording of travel times services of Limassol. such as Bluetooth devices. Floating car data was also recommended to be ii. Improvements in the existing bus used with location data by mobile fleet management and web-based devices or on-board units within the public transport travelers’ information vehicles. The system should be system that are already installed in integrated with the Ministry’s Traffic Limassol. Management and Control Center (TMCC) in Nicosia and the available B) Upgrading of the PT services existing software applications (such i. Bus Priority System. Exclusive bus as MISTIC). lanes in the seaside boulevard of Limassol are proposed. The lanes iii. Variable Message Signs (VMS). Installation of VMS in critical 37 intersections within the Study Area in limitations. They were recommended as order to provide real-time information “normal” priority measures. to drivers about traffic conditions, programmed events and road G) Affecting environmental conditions incidents. The system should also be Currently, there is a bike reservation/ sharing integrated with the TMCC of Nicosia system in operation in Limassol. Expansion in and the available existing software terms of geographical coverage and integration applications (MISTIC). of this system with the TMCC was recommended but other than this, no other iv. Incident Detection. Installation of high priority ITS measures have been Automatic Incident Detection (AID) identified. cameras in critical intersections and/or black spots within the whole of H) Increasing the public space to the urban area. The system should be citizens integrated with the Ministry’s TMCC The high priority measures that have been and relevant software applications. identified earlier in the category “emissions free zones” are also expected to support this v. CCTV monitoring. This refers to the category, so no additional high-priority monitoring of critical road measures were proposed. intersections within the CBD so that the TMCC Operator can visually 3.3. Detailed functional monitor the pertaining traffic specifications of the systems conditions and queues as well as to validate traffic incidents/ events on proposed the road network. Of interest is that for each specific measure E) Affecting operating costs of car and/ of the above list, a very detailed functional or costs of using the car specification Table was formed giving all the i. Integrated Parking Guidance System. necessary functional specifications and other Provision of parking availability details such as objectives, functionality, compared to supply and demand. This implementation area, approximate cost, system refers primarily to the duration, benefits and pre-requisites for provision of dynamic parking implementation. The following figure shows availability for off-street parking all the items of information supplied and is areas in the core CBD of Limassol in shown as an example of a useful and necessary order to minimize spent time for information to collect about any proposed ITS measure before actually moving on to parking and to reduce traffic procurement and implementation. congestion. ii. Advanced Parking Payment System. Provision of modern parking reservation and payment systems for on-street parking, so that the occupancy and the parking duration of each parked vehicle in a dedicated parking slot is monitored dynamically. F) Increasing the road safety ITS measures in this category (e.g., speed-limit enforcement systems) have not been identified as having high-priority at the moment either because their expected benefit was not considered as substantial or because of budget 38 System Name: SUMP Measure(s) to which it fits: Urban ITS Service served: System Objective: System Description (detailed description of the system proposed with objectives, functional characteristics, and so on – as an example of the type of info given here, the following text refers to the CCTV cameras installation measure): The scope of CCTV cameras is either to view, in real-time, any traffic events or incidents, or to verify a specific traffic event or incident after receiving some relevant notification (such as traffic variables indications by traffic detectors, receiving a notification by police or local council or citizen). The recommendation is that CCTV cameras that are not required for traffic counting or other continuous processing should be PTZ so that the operator will be able to monitor larger road stretches, using a single camera. Through PTZ cameras, the covered surveillance area is expected to bed widened considerably as opposed to a situation where static cameras are used. The positioning of CCTV cameras depends heavily on their intended use. The main scope for Limassol should be to achieve visual surveillance of critical traffic signalized intersections such as highly congested intersections as well as intersections where dedicated bus lanes are in operation. In future, the CCTV system can be further expanded in order to achieve a significant adequate coverage of primary road arterials in Limassol. The system should support the following key functions:  A user-friendly GUI allowing the TMCC operator to control the cameras’ parameters. Basic camera management a nd monitoring functionalities should be provided by the Advanced Traffic Management Software and integration to this software is necessary. Through the central GUI, operators should be able to have an overview of the system, as well as access to the system’s components. The locations of the cameras should be mapped in relevant cartographic format on the TCC’s base GIS.  Accessibility rights for each authorized user in terms of available functionalities and specific camera use.  Live video image feeds as well as video recording and playback capabilities are necessary. A timeline and log of each recorded event should be kept, and operators should be able to attach notes to each file.  Different camera states (such as viewing, recording, or stand-by) should be easily monitored.  Standard viewing functionalities such as Pan-Tilt-Zoom control, 360o navigation/rotation of cameras or lens, switching camera view, multiple/parallel camera views, and shared views between users should be available.  Pre-defined states and pre-sets of PTZ cameras should be configurable in order to move the cameras accordingly.  Data processing functionalities providing flexibility of creating or editing any event or incident.  Generation and management of reports.  Generation and management of alarms.  Printouts of various reports can be undertaken (including time of recording, user and any operator’s notes)  Diagnostic functions for provision of dynamic information related to the state of equipment should be provided. The data transmission from the on-site equipment to the TMCC should be conducted through a high-speed connection, such as a fibre optic network. The main activities for system development are the following:  Installation of CCTV/ PTZ at critical intersections.  Installation of CCTV management system or integration with the existing PWD TMCC software system.  Basic hardware equipment for system hosting.  System configuration.  Pilot/Test period.  Brief training session. Implementation Area (with maps and points of installation): Integration Needs: Estimated duration of implementation: Estimated benefits: Benchmarking: Pre-requisites for implementation: Estimated implementation cost: Figure 4: Example of useful and necessary information to collect regarding any proposed ITS measure. modal mobility should be examined for 3.4. Longer term smart city introduction. These services will concepts and services proposed provide user-centric information and travel services such as navigation, Other smart city innovatory measures and location, booking, payment and access services which are suggested to be examined in order to satisfy seamless mobility as for the longer term were the following: a service.  Autonomous Transportation Systems.  Mobility as a Service (MaaS) Fully autonomous public transport operations based on future 5G (bus) services should be the first option communications and enabling multi- 39 to consider followed by a fully application a most difficult aspect is the autonomous individual mobility (cars). selection and prioritization pf the measures to be employed. Prioritization is a particularly  Big and Open Data. Collection, critical phase in the whole process and has to management and freely available traffic be carried out with due respect to the local data storage and computing capacity conditions and the objectives of the local should be provided to enable all sorts authority concerned. of new services to be developed by entrepreneurs. References  Cooperative Transport Systems. These are planned to be fully deployed with [1] European Commission. Action Plan on priority the vehicle to infrastructure Urban Mobility. Communication from the communication (V2I) and vice versa Commission to the European parliament, (I2V). The publication of the European the Council, the European economic and Strategy on Cooperative Intelligent social Committee and the Committee of Transport Systems (C-ITS), of the the regions, COM (2009) 490 final, European Commission [3] is expected Brussels 30.9.2009. to form the basis for the future strategy [2] PTV, TREDIT, ALA consultants. of the Limassol municipality on this Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan for domain. Limassol, Cyprus. Public Works More complex IT smart city applications Department, Republic of Cyprus (study will be considered, within the urban co-funded by the European Commission), environment to materialize the many inter- Final Report, June 2019. related urban transportation functions that are [3] European Commission. A European being applied. strategy on Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems, a milestone towards 4. Conclusions cooperative, connected and automated mobility. Communication from the commission to the European parliament, Public administrations and municipalities the Council, the European economic and across Europe are striving to plan and social Committee and the Committee of implement Intelligent Transport Systems the regions, COM (2016) 766 final, applications with a view to integrating them Brussels, 30.11.2016. within their smart-city concept of the future. [4] Giannopoulos A.G. (2020). Quantifying They are facing a challenging task to the role of IT in the ITS sector. IEEE 23rd harmonize sustainable urban development, i.e., Intelligent Transportation Systems the need for environmental protection, offering Conference ITSC 2020, Rhodes (virtual job opportunities and preserving better living conference), Greece, September 20-23, conditions, with the need to achieve good 2020. mobility services based on Information Technology and Intelligence. This paper explained the way these tasks were handled in Limassol the second largest city of Cyprus. The key message and conclusion from this case is the need to combine the provisions and requirements of a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) with the provisions and requirements of the high-level technological applications that are necessary for the development of a “smart” mobility system as part of the smart-city concept of the future. This combination of tasks should be the major prerequisite in all future smart-city developments. It is also of interest to note that within the context of a real-world smart city 40