Public and private partnerships are shaping up to be critical to the development of IoT executions and solutions for Smart City and Smart Transportation initiatives all over the world. (Honestly, I’m not sure that those two are different, but that’s another article.) The newest announcement of such a partnership came today from Australia.
Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS), part of Cubic Corporation, and the University of Melbourne have announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to partner on the development of a National Connected Multimodal Transport (NCMT) Test Bed, which will deliver the first implementation of Cubic’s Surface Transport Management Solution (STMS).
The announcement said that this NCMT Test Bed will be the world’s first urban laboratory capable of large-scale testing and implementation of IoT technology in complex urban environments, which is hard to prove, but still ambitious. The testing will explore ways to address population growth and the resulting traffic increases by studying traffic data, public transportation use rates and parking statistics. It will also focus on multimodal transportation systems including connected vehicles, roadways, freight, city logistics, public transportation, smart stations, pedestrians and cyclists.
“Our transportation infrastructure is under severe pressure and this is only going to increase. Governments need to make operations more efficient, while allowing customers to easily connect with all the services and infrastructure we have created,” said Tom Walker, SVP and managing director, CTS Asia-Pacific. “To achieve this, cities need to take advantage of the massive amounts of data currently at their fingertips and realize new opportunities to connect different systems and create a level of higher intelligence about the system as a whole.”
The STMS will provide the transportation planners with a system for data use and analysis, connecting different systems and data sets to provide planners with a holistic real-time view of travel across the entire network.
This integration of public, private, freight and active transportation information is essential in guiding strategic decisions to improve traffic patterns, reduce congestion and revolutionize city planning. It will also enhance customer experience through providing a higher quality of information to travelers about all transportation modes from one personalized account.
“We are keen to establish long-term partnerships with leading transport engineering solutions providers, and working with Cubic on the NCMT Test Bed will allow testing and implementation of connected transport in a real-world and dynamic environment,” said Majid Sarvi, professor, Transport for Smart Cities, Department of Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne. “The NCMT is an integrated platform connecting tools and enablers, which will empower governments and wider industry to examine different mobilities and transport scenarios in preparing for future smart cities.”
Edited by
Alicia Young