Like many cities across Europe, Copenhagen is working hard to offer its citizens a more environmentally friendly place to live. The Danish capital’s ambition is to be the first CO2-neutral European city by 2025. With traffic responsible for 90% of harmful emissions, local authorities asked Dynniq to upgrade the ImFlow traffic management system used in the city, prioritizing public transport and reducing CO2 emissions.
They spent 2020 updating ImFlow across the streets of Copenhagen. We also upgraded ImFlow Central – a tool that allows traffic authorities to manage the entire system from one center. The newest ImFlow software platform, from our technology provider Peek Traffic, uses state-of-the-art control algorithms to calculate optimal traffic flow, and determines how long traffic lights stay green. This reduces the number of time cars idle at an intersection, for example, or gives cyclists and buses priority, making these ‘greener’ modes of transport more attractive to Copenhagen’s citizens.
As a city grows, so does the amount of traffic. This means that different aspects and areas need to be prioritized, and traffic management must maximize the capacity of the existing infrastructure. This is where ImFlow comes in. Because we operate on the cutting edge of traffic management and technology, our engineers can continuously improve the ImFlow algorithm and product as more and more traffic situations occur and more data are collected. This means the available infrastructure can always be used in the best way possible to optimize the flow of traffic. For example, bus stops and dwell times can be configured beforehand so that the algorithm can plan bus routes more efficiently.
Because no two cities are the same, indicators and targets also vary for each project – from seconds off waiting time at a traffic light to lower delays on bus routes. Local policy and client requirements also come into play. In this case, the City of Copenhagen wanted to reduce CO2 emissions from idling traffic as well as giving priority to public transport.
Despite COVID-19 restrictions, our team stayed on track and completed the project according to schedule. In fact, the pandemic has actually highlighted one of the advantages of ImFlow. Traditional traffic light cycles often work with clocks and pre-programmed schedules – think, peak versus non-peak times. ImFlow, by contrast, measures the volume of traffic in real-time and continually adapts. In the Copenhagen project, this meant that when city dwellers were encouraged to stay home and the volume of traffic noticeably decreased, it was not necessary to make any changes at all: ImFlow was smart enough to go with the flow and adapt to changing conditions.
Source: Peek Traffic
Photo by Artem Shuba on Unsplash
“We are very pleased to see two prominent ERTICO Partners cooperating in making transport more efficient and decarbonized. This close cooperation is however not looking only at what can be done today, but also at a more sustainable future. This has been demonstrated by Compass4D and C-MobILE European projects, where partners defined and are defining the future generation of traffic management utilizing latest C-ITS services for the benefit of all road users, including cyclists.” – Said Zeljko Jeftic, Deputy Director Innovation & Deployment at ERTICO.
