Monitoring and “regularize” the city traffic is a top priority for every smart city. Nowadays, The technology offers powerful tools to improve traffic flow in large urban centers such as the city of Bari, capital region of Apulia, in Southern-East of Italy. Starting from the management-mobility, such as integrated systems that provide useful information in real-time through display panels located in different areas of the city.
Macnil is the first company in Europe, to give real-time information on the traffic on the main streets of the City, an also info on Urban Traffic and on Extra urban (roads and highways), through the Project Infotraffic.it.
The City of Bari which is a counted in the Italian Smart Cities project, is the first city in Europe to test our project, now speaks with the Corriere della Sera – Corriere del Mezzogiorno newspaper:
BARI – Reduce traffic along the main gate roads to the city, away via Napoli, via Buozzi down to the seafront. Thirteen display panels, used for years to provide information on the Saint of the day or on any closures in the case of events, have now become indicators of the level of traffic in the city. The system, currently experimental, accomplished by a company of Gravina (MACNIL), is connected, via GPS with 105 buses and 35 cars in charge to the municipal police, and calculates how long a vehicle takes to cross the main roads. Furthermore, shows the level of traffic, from ‘fast’ to ‘slide’ to ‘slow down’. All in real time. In the coming weeks the City of Bari will step forward: there will be only traffic information, but also the alternatives, so as to provide solutions for motorists entering the city without getting stuck in the streets. At the same time the city council is developing, thanks to the Polytechnic University, an algorithm which is based on the presence of cars in a road and the speed of travel. It is able to offer the traffic forecast, daily.
“The second step – explain by the Traffic Office – there will be developed APPS for mobile phones, in order to have the traffic situation in the city. This is the way to relieve congestion on some roads, providing a service to citizens, for free. Because part of the project Infomobility with the City of Bari is financed with EU funds. That is highlighting Bari as innovative city in Europe. “The total funding is 272mila euro (State funds). Besides, in September is going to be made a tender to equip 75 intersections in the city (district Murat, Madonnella and Libertà) of intelligent traffic lights. In this case have been allocated 2 million and 200 thousand euro from the Regional Government and the City Gov. The traffic lights will be synchronized and will be placed a device above the plants, they will be able to transmit to the City Police Central Station information concerning number of cars passing on any city roads and driving times. In this way, the Council Government can work just-in-time in changing the waiting time minutes at junction to make the traffic flow. The Council also approved an agreement with the AMTAB (Bari Mobility Public Company) called Summit , as part of the Italian Greece Bi-national Cooperation. The urban transport company, together with the City Council technicians, will develop a system for automatic accessing to the park and ride located at Pane e Pomodoro Beach and of course Vittorio Veneto (sea side) with the barrier installation at the entry and exit gates, it will be installed also cash machines and display panels which will indicate the number of vacancies. Moreover, it will be placed up 15 smart poles along the Bari – Carbonara route, which will be used to inform passengers on the bus waiting times. However, a similar project was already started on the Ferrotramviaria parking, although in recent years there have been quite a few problems related to the maintenance of automatic access.
