On 17 March Abel Caballero, Mayor of Vigo, welcomed to Vigo the European project CO-GISTICS as an additional step of the city towards a smart city which looks at reducing carbon emissions and creating a fluid traffic of goods in the city as well as bridges with the industrial partners.
Over the past few years and nowadays, a series of projects have been completed and are also ongoing in Vigo and the region for the piloting and implementation of cooperative technologies to alleviate traffic problems. SISCOGA, DriveC2X, Compass4D together with CO-GISTICS are excellent examples. As a result Vigo and its metropolitan area have available an urban-interurban cooperative infrastructure with more than 100 km of roads, 54 Road Side Units, 26 cameras, 43 traffic detectors, 19 variable message sings and 10 High Precision Meteorological Stations. This entire infrastructure is connected by a fibre optic ring to Local Traffic Management Centre in the City of Vigo, in the case of urban environment, and to DGT North West Traffic Management Centre in the case of interurban roads.
A fleet of 15 trucks will be equipped with on board units thanks to CO-GISTICS. Those vehicles will join the 20 buses, 8 taxis, 10 private users and 2 emergency vehicles that are installed with the cooperative services of Compass4D in the City of Vigo.
“Vigo area is a reference in implementation of cooperative technologies as a result of several years working from research to deployment of these technologies in close collaboration with the public authorities and local stakeholders.” Francisco Sanchez, Director of Electronics & ITS Division at CTAG said.
The CO-GISTICS pilot site in Vigo is deploying 4 of the 5 services of the project (Intelligent truck parking and delivery areas management; Priority & Speed advice; Eco-Drive support; CO2 emission estimation and monitoring) which will improve the movement of goods between the major logistics centres in the city.
“CEAGA is very positive about joining CO-GISTICS; the project focuses on the deployment of information systems in transport, of which our member will benefit. In particular we look with great interest at services that can reduce fuel consumption and C02 emissions. This project allows monitoring several types of existing driving, favouring an efficient driving.” Borja Dapena González, project manager in charge of CO-GISTICS at CEAGA Foundation, the cluster which represents the automotive sector in Galicia, stated.
Vigo is one of the most advanced cities in Europe in terms of intelligent transport, having also formed strong partnerships with European companies and organisations. The CO-GISTICS consortium is made of 32 solid private and public entities with a long-lasting history and experience in logistics and freight; CTAG and CEAGA are the leading bodies of the Vigo pilot site.
“We have a long term and productive relationship with Vigo public and private partners, having worked in many past activities and in ongoing successful projects such as CO-GISTICS that we presented officially in Spain. The joint efforts to deploying ITS with and in the city of Vigo has been further strengthened by the decision of Vigo City Council to become officially an ERTICO Partner”, Rasmus Lindholm, Director of Partnership, and Jean-Charles Pandazis, CO-GISTICS coordinator, stated on behalf of ERTICO – ITS Europe.
Piloting in 7 of Europe’s leading logistics centres (Arad, Bordeaux, Bilbao, Frankfurt, Thessaloniki, Trieste and Vigo), CO-GISTICS services will help make operation of goods, trucks, roads, ports, airports and rail terminals more sustainable and efficient. CO-GISTICS will target the needs of the freight industry taking into account the economic and environmental challenges of the public authorities, fleet operators, freight forwarders and terminal operators. CO-GISTICS will integrate existing freight and transport systems with innovative solutions such as cooperative services and intelligent cargo. These services will stay in use after the end of the project and will be further developed by logistic distribution hubs for their future deployment.
