Overview
The CARMA project envisions the development of an innovative and comprehensive ICT system targeted for supporting and promoting Green daily commuting habits, with a particular focus on helping the user save on fuel expenses, time, and greenhouse gas emissions, on a regular and daily basis.
The CARMA concept focuses on creating an innovative application, which accurately calculates more efficient routes, in terms of cost, fuel, emissions and time, thus promoting an eco-friendlier driving mode. CARMA’s ambition is to provide reliable feedback to the users on how much fuel, money, time, and CO2 they spend when driving their way to their destinations.
The specific scientific and technological objectives implemented during the course of the project are:
- Holistic approach for traffic data acquisition
- Intelligent and advanced traffic data fusion
- Provision of reliable feedback information
- Advanced green routing decision support system
- Smart and efficient computation of usage patterns
- User privacy assurance
- Engineering of a comprehensive ICT system implementing the proposed functionalities
- Validation of the engineered system in laboratory and field trials
Funding
Results
The project results in a fully-functional system comprising of two (2) main components and encompassing four (4) advanced processes/functions. The aforementioned components are:
- The Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS): is the part of the system installed at the user’s mobile terminal that can be used when the driver is in his/her vehicle.
- The Central Platform (CP): is the part of the system supporting the functionalities offered by CARMA and resided in the service provider’s premises.
The advanced processes/functions are:
- The holistic approach for traffic data acquisition: Besides the conventional traffic data collection means, such as road traffic cameras, induction loops and other sensors, CARMA also collects data from mobile network operators, through which, after appropriate analysis, information for the users’ trips within an area is extracted. Furthermore, the collection of data from fleets, equipped with tracking systems of position and other driving parameters contributes to an integrated view of the traffic conditions on the road network. Of course, CARMA also collects additional and anonymized data from its users, while the latter use the system to find the desired route to their destination.
- The advanced traffic fusion: The intelligent combination and precise analysis of the collected data from all heterogeneous traffic data sources results in the multi-faceted recognition of traffic conditions on the road network, which can be utilized not only to service drivers- CARMA users, but also to assist responsible organizations in better managing the road network
- The support of green routing decisions: This functionality provides decision support for pre-trip selection of the eco-friendlier route, post-trip review of the characteristics of a travelled route and comparison to other routes with the same origin-destination, as well as route correction based on economic-ecologic criteria, in case of deviation from the originally planned route while travelling.
- The extraction of road network usage patterns: The CARMA system additionally supports the intelligent identification of road network usage patterns and the creation of origin-destination matrices for future predictions of network load.
Furthermore, in the context of the project, a business exploitation study was performed, based on a parameterized business model developed specifically for the project needs, aiming at investigating the prerequisites for the commercial viability of the CARMA solutions.
Innovation aspects
The innovation of the proposed system lies in the combined use and processing of diverse data, possible originating from extremely heterogeneous sources. These diverse data, compared and analyzed at the same time, can result in providing more accurate information at three different times: pre-trip, on-trip and post-trip.
Types of data used are:
- Traffic data that can be collected through induction loops, traffic management cameras, as well as Traffic Management Centers
- Data from fleet management systems
- Anonymized data from mobile networks
- Anonymized data from travelled routes of the CARMA users
Technical Implications
CARMA will enable the provision of advanced Green road-transport services to the end users. More precisely, CARMA will address the following popular use cases:
Through CARMA, users will be able to get informed about the amount of fuel, money, time, or CO2 they spend on routes on which they travel. They will also be able to compare different alternative routing options for getting to their destination, e.g. choosing a motorway vs. an avenue, etc. Users will be able to see such comparative results directly on their mobile devices, as well as on the Web, thus getting proper feedback on their routing choices.
CARMA will also enable the extraction of important but not easily identifiable road usage patterns. Thanks to its holistic ICT-based approach, CARMA will provide an invaluable tool (“O-D”: origin and destination matrices) to road operators and authorities for efficiently analyzing the traffic demand and for better serving the public.
Readiness
As far as commercialization of the CARMA system is concerned, the technical know-how is available, the software has been developed and tested and the exceptional cooperation among the consortium members guarantee that, provided that the necessary resources become available, the system will be promoted to a wide range of users.