INESC TEC supports Intelligent Mobility in the Urban Quadrilateral

INESC TEC presented the results of two consultancy projects in information systems, which aimed at designing a data integration point concerning Transport and Urban Mobility Services existing in the region of the Urban Quadrilateral. 

Covering the municipalities of Barcelos, Braga, Famalicão and Guimarães, the Urban Quadrilateral is the third most populous urban territorial aggregate at national level (about 600.000 people); one of the main goals of the region’s authorities is to provide citizens smarter, sustainable, and connected mobility services. In this sense, this data integration point, called Minho Access Point (MAP), will be the core of the information infrastructure, and one of the fundamental axes of the future Smart Mobility Centre of the Urban Quadrilateral. 

The first project, carried out between March and September 2021, aimed to define the MAP architecture. “We started by surveying existing transport and urban mobility services in the municipalities, such as the Public Service of Passenger Transport, smart parking, shared mobility, etc. We also carried out the identification of the main consumers and suppliers of MAP data and the elaboration of an application architecture for the integration point”, indicated José Correia, researcher at the Human-Centered Computing and Information Science (HumanISE). 

The second project, nearing completion, aims to specify the interoperability of the Minho Access Point. In this sense, “an architecture proposal was defined, capable of adequately supporting the interoperability mechanisms between the MAP and the municipal, intercity and national access points, concerning various mobility services identified”, explained the researcher, revealing the use of an Enterprise Architecture methodological tool – The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) – and different modelling languages for the construction of diagrams for use cases, application components, interoperability and security. 

During the two projects, the team also carried out a summary characterisation of the information systems supporting mobility services, considering the relevant European legislation: the ITS Directive, the identification of the main standards and data formats applicable to the road transport and urban mobility sector. 

During the month of January, INESC TEC will conclude the last planned activity, with the delivery of a report on intelligent transport systems that will soon be implemented in the Quadrilateral, taking advantage of the data/integrated information existing in the MAP. 

In addition to José Correia, researchers Henrique São Mamede, Frederico Branco, Arsénio Reis and Artur Capela, from INESC TEC’s Human-Centered Computing and Information Science (HumanISE), also collaborated in these projects. 

The researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC, Universidade Aberta and the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD).