PTV has won a major traffic management contract in Italy's capital, Rome.
Roma Servizi per la Mobilità, the Department of Mobility and Transportation for the City of Rome, has chosen the PTV Optima integrated traffic monitoring and management software system to renew its mobility management centre.
PTV Optima combines offline traffic modelling with real-time data, enabling planners to monitor and forecast traffic in a rolling horizon from five, 10 or 30 minutes up to an hour.
The software identifies the best scenarios to manage congestion, road closures or construction sites and to accurately simulate the interaction of all vehicles and pedestrians, PTV says.
This is useful since, like many other cities around the world, Rome is beset with jammed roads and air pollution issues.
According to the current Inrix 2020 Global Traffic Scorecard, the Italian capital is ranked 18th among the most congested cities, with drivers spending an average of 66 hours' a year stuck in traffic.
While buses are the backbone of the public transport system, private vehicle use is high - particularly in the midst of the Covid pandemic.
Rome has released a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan tackling a broad range of mobility issues that it faces, including those relating to active mobility (such as walking and cycling), infrastructure for public transport, the primary road network and delivery of goods within the city.
The aim of the plan is to promote accessibility for all, greater safety and the use of ‘smart’ technologies that enable communication between infrastructure, vehicles and people.
PTV says introducing Optima will enable Rome "to create a smarter and safer network".
"The city joins other major metropolises around the world such as Dubai or Taichung [in Taiwan] which are already using PTV technology for intelligent traffic management," the company adds.
