The Director General of Traffic, Pere Navarro, opened a day dedicated to promoting new mobility during a conference in Madrid last week, in which he highlighted that “the future of traffic will be shared, or it will not exist”.
Navarro explained that the traffic jams that used to occur during holiday periods have now been reduced thanks to the fact that departures and returns are done in a much more staggered manner, but that the problems have now been transferred to the entrances and exits of large cities on workdays during rush hour.
Having found that 85% of the vehicles that travel from home to work and from work to home every day only have one occupant and taking into account that access to cities is already at maximum capacity, beyond seeking solutions to expand infrastructure, “we must make a collective change of mentality that allows us to encourage high vehicle occupancy, because we cannot afford to move 1,500 kg every day to transport just one person. Increasing vehicle occupancy is a challenge and a necessity.”
In his speech, the Director General of Traffic also wanted to reflect on the importance of mobility in the country’s economic activity and, of course, in the urban sphere, “we have seen it with the effects of the DANA in Valencia, we see it with the forecasts of package deliveries for Black Friday or the Christmas campaign, so it is clear that the future of cities is played out in the field of mobility.” “Those that know how to manage it well will attract talent and investment, and those that do not will be trapped in noise, congestion, pollution and accidents.”
PUBLIC-PRIVATE COLLABORATION
The first block of the morning focused on the initiatives being developed by the DGT to promote new mobility, with special emphasis on how the use of data in a context of public-private collaboration can contribute to making mobility safer and more efficient. Marta Martínez, head of the DGT Surveillance area, explained how DGT NAP works, highlighting that real-time information on traffic and infrastructure is necessary to improve safety and ensure that accurate services reach users.
Montserrat Estaca, head of the Telematics area of the DGT, also commented on how DGT 3.0 is used as an integrator of all the information provided by different public and private systems that form part of mobility.
In this regard, Edgar Camelo, Product Partnership at Google, explained how the Google Maps map is updated 50 million times a day thanks, among others, to data from the DGT, which is of crucial importance to them due to the safety and efficiency they provide to users. “We find this work commendable and by working together we will make transport more sustainable and connected.”
In addition, in this first block, Antonio Granado, director of the Southwest Traffic Management Centre, also spoke about the DGT SCADA project, a project that INDRA is developing for the Organisation and with which information will be provided to more than 10,000 units with a system that offers an infinite number of graphics and dashboards, in addition to information from the video streaming platform. All of this, as explained by María Díaz, project manager at INDRA, with special emphasis on cybersecurity with an exhaustive analysis of the risks with simulations, audits, etc.
GOOD PRACTICES IN SHARED MOBILITY
The second block of the morning focused on explaining how certain tools and good practices can contribute to the future of new mobility and also help, for example, to put two people in each car. Companies such as BlaBlaCar, Uber, Kinto Mobility and Karos Mobility were able to share their experience, both nationally and internationally, to connect people for the benefit of cities and with efficiency and road safety as objectives.
To discuss regulatory experiences in the field of Administration, the head of the Sustainable Mobility Management Service of the AMB, Mar Iglesias, the general director of Transport and Mobility of the Community of Madrid, Luis Miguel Torres, and the general director of Transport and Mobility of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Susi López, also participated in the meeting. They all shared the need to support car-sharing initiatives, regulating this sector and even turning it into a public service, to make them work and contribute to improving mobility in cities.
VEHICLE AND AUTONOMOUS DRIVING
The afternoon session, focused on vehicles and autonomous driving, will feature the participation of the Ministry of Industry and ANFAC to discuss strategies, approaches, evidence and perspectives in this area, as well as the Madrid City Council, which will provide testimony on the municipal approach and the tests that are being carried out in the city.
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