The Intelligent Urban mobility project presented, entrusted to Movyon, for integrated mobility management.
Shared development of technological innovations for increasingly connected and efficient mobility at the service of the community. With this goal in mind, in cooperation with Free to X and Movyon, companies of the Autostrade per l’Italia Group, the Mobility Lab has been inaugurated. This innovative 400 m² space is dedicated to Smart Genova, a programme with areas of intervention in urban mobility and goods logistics promoted by the Municipality of Genoa, the Liguria Region, and the Western Ligurian Sea Port Authority (AdSP). This initiative will make the city and the Ligurian port infrastructure the most advanced transport system in Italy.
The launch of this initiative took place on the occasion of the opening of Genoa Smart Week 2024. Located in the heart of Porto Antico, with about 400 m² of surface, the Mobility Lab will welcome public and private stakeholders interested in the innovative path taken by the city of the Lantern, its port and logistics activities.
The Mobility Lab is dedicated to the co-planning of the areas where the cooperation between the City, the Region, and the AdSP is being developed, and aims at becoming a national reference point for the innovation of intelligent mobility by providing spaces for discussion, in-depth analysis, and dissemination for the benefit of citizens and operators.
The Intelligent Urban Mobility project
With this vision, the Mobility Lab is also the site for the integration and testing of the Intelligent Urban Mobility project. Thanks to a data-driven system that acquires data from the territory by means of the most advanced Internet of Things technologies, the project makes possible the integrated management of Genoa’s mobility by correlating data and processing them with the use of artificial intelligence. This offers citizens advanced services and the PA up-to-date and timely information, as well as decision support systems and the implementation of data-driven government actions.
The project is being implemented by Movyon, the technology and innovation company of the Autostrade per l’Italia Group, with its Urban Mobility business unit, which leads a team of excellent partners, including Liguria Digitale, Mindicity (TIM Enterprise, Tim Group), Gruppo FOS and Aitek, to create a single system, open to the integration of external data and applications, and attentive to the enhancement of local skills. The technology and the platform are hosted in the Data Centre managed by Liguria Digitale and all hardware and software infrastructure will remain the property of the city.
The main innovative elements of the Intelligent Urban Mobility project.
The platform, the city’s digital twin and heart of the system, facilitates alert processes supporting the operational management of the city in the event of alert scenarios. The platform also provides public decision-makers with short-term (hours, days) forecasting and medium-term planning tools, integrating multiple sophisticated functions.
The monitoring and control of access and transits, through an articulated system of gates and monitoring points, enables the implementation of dynamic city mobility management policies, the prediction of sustainability impacts resulting from construction sites, events, etc., and operational decisions on city mobility, implemented through gates and traffic lights.
Artificial Intelligence applied to image processing identifies free spaces in public parking areas, updating in real time and in a non-invasive manner. The citizen is informed through ‘traditional’ tools (e.g. panels) and through the Urban Smart Road, communicating the information of available parking lots to vehicles through Infoparking.
By bringing technologies from the motorway to the city, the Urban Smart Road prepares Genoa for the spread of connected and self-driving vehicles, enabling them to inform citizens when needed or to guide them towards virtuous behaviour.
The City Logistics module – enabled by the involvement of the economic operators involved in last-mile goods logistics – integrates delivery planning data into the digital twin, thus enabling the optimisation of routes and stops, with the aim of reducing inefficiencies and limiting traffic congestion.
The adaptive traffic light control includes optimisation and prioritisation functions on the entire city traffic light network for the benefit of local public transport and critical transport, and uses data from the city’s digital twin to implement decisions that improve traffic flow and increase road safety, including through active information strategies for mobile vehicles.
The Smart Logistics project
The action plan for the port and freight logistics, although in a context where the innovative component of the process (Port Community System) already represents a case of success in Italian ports, aims to:
- improve the accessibility of the system’s ports of call
- develop and expand the technological and innovative component of the port process
- promote the integration of the ports into the infrastructure connection network through collaboration with ASPI
- increase the level of protection of the ports with regard to port security aspects
- The push for innovation is one of the key elements and long-term development objectives of the Western Ligurian Sea ports of call for current and future solutions serving safety, the environment, process efficiency and transport planning.
‘Genoa is now confirmed as a model of innovation and sustainability, ready to lead the future of smart mobility in Italy and beyond. The inauguration of the Mobility Lab represents a new step forward for our city, which becomes a benchmark in the development of advanced technological solutions for a more efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly mobility,’ says Marco Bucci, President of the Liguria Region. ‘The synergy between the public and private sectors shows its great potential: cutting-edge technologies, data analysis and artificial intelligence are put at the service of citizens to optimise urban mobility management and improve everyone’s quality of life. The Mobility Lab, supported by excellences such as Liguria Digitale, Movyon and other valuable partners, is a place where innovation and tradition join forces, putting local expertise at the service of a global vision. Being located in the heart of the old port, it is a tangible expression of our commitment to building a modern and liveable Genoa and Liguria without compromising its identity. Sustainability, safety, and innovation become the pillars of this development, which, starting from the valorisation of important industrial and logistic assets, looks towards a promising future, in which challenges and opportunities yet to be imagined are intertwined’.
‘The Mobility Lab is destined to become a reference point for mobility on a national level,’ says Genoa City Councillor for Mobility Matteo Campora. The shared development of technological innovations for an increasingly connected and efficient mobility is crucial. It is no coincidence that this administration has dedicated great importance to the topic in recent years, as evidenced by the countless projects implemented for local public transport. The cities of the future will be different from those of the past, and Genoa will not be found unprepared thanks to tools and hubs such as this. The integrated management of mobility in Genoa achieved by correlating data and processing them with the use of artificial intelligence represents an important step forward in technological innovation that will bring great benefit to citizens’.
According to Sabino Titomanlio, Head of the Urban Mobility business unit of Movyon, Autostrade per l’Italia Group, ‘The Intelligent Urban Mobility project offers an amazing opportunity for the application of Autostrade per l’Italia Group’s skills to the urban context and to build a case of excellence and reference for Italy’. ‘The challenge is to collect and optimise all available data to make new and existing applications work together. Thanks to a group of excellent partners and a team of professionals, after the first year, the city’s digital twin is already operational, a software platform that relies on computing and connectivity infrastructures that will remain the complete property of the city. We are now ready for the installation of the connected urban infrastructure, consisting of hundreds of systems distributed throughout the Genoese territory: restricted traffic areas, traffic monitoring points, information panels, vehicle-to-infrastructure communication antennas, and other innovative elements that will continuously feed an invaluable data repository for advanced and sustainable urban mobility management.’