Within a Smart City, which we have already talked about in La Lonja de la Innovación, Smart Transport plays a protagonist role. These two concepts go hand in hand, as for there to truly be a Smart City, there must also be Smart Transport.
To have an intelligent transportation net, which is capable of providing better and more efficient services, is vital for Smart Cities. But what is Smart Transport? This already lives with us and has nothing to do with flying cars or other sci-fi elements, this is something more simple. Let us explain!
What is Smart Transport?
Smart Transport, also known as intelligent transportation systems, applies technologies that control, evaluate, and manage a city's transportation systems to improve safety and efficiency. It involves enhancing transportation through the use of technologies, such as monitoring traffic patterns, coordinating train schedules, etc. For this, Smart Cities, like a Smart City, uses technologies such as IoT, sensors, AI, and Big Data.
The growth cities have experienced in recent decades has led to an increase in the number of vehicles and trips, making traffic and mobility within urban areas more difficult. Therefore, the goal is to find solutions to these problems and enable more efficient logistics that, at the same time, help reduce traffic-related pollution, reduce accidents, and decrease traffic jams.
Intelligent traffic management is revolutionizing how cities address mobility issues by reducing street congestion. Among its many advantages are:
- Increased Safety. It allows route improvements based on aspects that could negatively affect a journey.
- Better Management. The collection of real-time and detailed data allows for better monitoring of actions and tracking, making it easier to identify problems.
- Increased Efficiency. Having data and information about transportation makes it possible to identify where failures occur and find solutions to improve efficiency.
The importance of Smart Parking
Within Smart Transport, we can highlight a concept gaining more strength, smart parking. Who hasn't spent more time than desired driving around looking for a parking spot? This can be frustrating and entails several problems such as increased pollution, higher expenses, driver stress, increased traffic, etc. This is why smart parking was born.
Many companies are already trying to solve this problem and are developing devices based on IoT and sensor technology. This allows the optimization of parking spaces in cities, as they detect the availability of free spaces, both outdoors and indoors.
These systems use sensors to detect information about parking availability in different areas, and this data is analyzed and interpreted through big data to determine if there are available spaces. In short, it is a real-time monitoring system that makes the task easier for drivers.
Urbiotica, a startup you can discover in the showroom of La Lonja de la Innovación, offers a solution in this area. They have developed U-Spot M2M, a wireless parking sensor that measures variations in the Earth's magnetic field occurring in a parking space every 3 seconds (configurable) to determine free or occupied spaces.
If you also have an innovative idea in any of these areas or another you want to take to the next level, don't forget that we have an open call for our acceleration program throughout the year. Join La Lonja!