David Crawford on the ups and downs of a Latin metropolis.
Medellín, Colombia’s second city and a recognised leader in sustainable transport thinking, is rapidly extending its substantial existing investment in modern mobility. It is deploying both an enhanced integrated traffic management array and the country’s first intermodal public transportation management system.
The supplier of both, under separate €9 million (US$12.3 million) contracts, is Spanish engineering company Indra, a major exporter
Passengers on Medellín’s metro benefit from a closer integration with the bus service
David Crawford on the ups and downs of a Latin metropolis.
Medellín, Colombia’s second city and a recognised leader in sustainable transport thinking, is rapidly extending its substantial existing investment in modern mobility. It is deploying both an enhanced integrated traffic management array and the country’s first intermodal public transportation management system.
The supplier of both, under separate €9 million (US$12.3 million) contracts, is Spanish engineering company509 Indra, a major exporter of technology to Latin America. In 2013, it completed an efficiency-oriented upgrade to the city’s recently-modernised traffic control centre for twin clients - telecoms operator UNE Epm Telecommunicaciones, and electricity supplier XM, a subsidiary of national power grid operator ISA, which runs the centre.
Indra has overlaid its997 Hermes coordinating traffic flow technology on the city’s Intelligent System for the Mobility of Medellín (SIMM), as a further step towards managing down endemic congestion.
Initiated in 2009 to replace a very basic camera-based system, SIMM has been the subject of continuous development, deploying arrays of traffic sensors, CCTV (currently being extended), variable message signs (VMS), video detection and networked traffic signals. Introduced to monitor and integrate these subsystems for continuous real-time traffic tracking and incident detection, Hermes has added new information management and analytical capability based on the storage of current and historic data.
The 40 shift-working operators at the traffic control centre, which XM began running in 2011, now have enhanced access to multiple data sources. They can view real-time road conditions at 48 strategically-chosen points across the city as the basis for faster decision-making and incident response, while drivers receive timelier alerts via variable message signs, social media (2171 Twitter and 2170 Facebook) and radio updates.
The traffic control centre now works in coordination with other transport operations in which UNE Epm is also a technological partner, including Medellín’s emergency response centre. An automatic vehicle location component, for example, enables on-street traffic patrols to monitor the locations of police vehicles and, with integration into the centre’s incident management capability, improve the allocation of resources and safety-critical reaction times.
With a population of 3.5 million living in the topographically-restricted metropolitan area, Medellín has a long history of congestion, leading in 2005 to the introduction of licence plate-based peak hour restrictions. A 2011 review found that this did reduce peak congestion, but at the same time moved flows to off-peak periods, because many of the drivers affected preferred to continue using their own cars but change their times of travel, so creating a ‘constant rush’.
A year later, this prompted academics at the Medellín campus of the National University of Colombia to make the first research-based statement of the ‘necessity’ of implementing charging in the city. This, they argued, would remove restrictions on car use and give all drivers a choice.
For this, Indra is delivering its operations assistance system to Metroplús, the city’s bus rapid transit network. The company is integrating its operations assistance system with its DaVinci technology, which has been managing the city’s subway train traffic since 2008. Developed in conjunction with ADIF, the state-owned company responsible for managing Spain’s railway infrastructure, DaVinci has won an IBM Beacon Award in the travel and transportation category.
Operations assistance system components – onboard GPS-based management and GIS-based automatic vehicle location; and a mobile communications infrastructure based on GPRS and 3G technology – feed into a public transport control centre. This monitors service levels to allow operators to make rapid decisions to deal with the effects of incidents or delays, and generates statistical data for management information.
A CCTV-based passenger counting system registers numbers boarding and exiting each bus, recording occupancy levels to prevent the risk of overcrowding, enable the deployment of backup vehicles at peak periods, and give statistical support for future service planning. A key aim is to achieve more unified operations, with special emphasis on the scope for interchange.
The L1 and L2 bus rapid transit lines share most of a main line route and the new technology gives line interchange information using a new in-bus passenger information system. These lines also connect with the metro.
The aim is to keep service operators informed on the movements of all public transport vehicles in the city, as well as on the status of potential links available at interchanges - taking transfer times into consideration. If the synchronisation of services necessary for practical interchange looks like being at risk, the system makes it possible to manage the consequences.
When, for example, a metro train is going to be delayed by, say, two minutes in reaching a particular station, the system can alert the drivers of buses scheduled to pick up from that station to delay their departure. There is also the potential for the city to ‘reward’, with better services, passengers willing to travel at specific times of day; and favour designated access or exit routes to and from areas of particularly heavy load – such as before or after sports events.
The set up includes provision to incorporate planned trams on the 4.3km, nine-station, low-emission Ayacucho Green Corridor tramway which is due to open in mid-2015. It will improve connections with suburbs to the east of the city, and link up with the existing cable car network (see below).
Passengers will also benefit from the existing integrated fare payment already available across all modes. Built into the integration programme is future scope for the public transport and traffic control systems to work in coordination, for example during an emergency.
Cutting journey times from an hour or more to half an hour or less, these links consist of a cable car network, dating from 2006; and a giant, free-to-use escalator, climbing a distance of 385m (the equivalent of a 28-storey building). Cable car stations have spawned busy local markets on the hillsides.
The year before, 2012, Medellín shared the international Sustainable Transport Award with San Francisco.
Bestowed by the New York, US-based Institute for Transport and Development Policy, the Sustainable Transport Award acknowledged the city’s expansion, during the previous year, of its already ‘significant investments’ in sustainable transportation. The citation acknowledged the use of ‘progressive techniques’, including the SIMM intelligent mobility system, increasing deployment of rapid transit buses, ridesharing programmes and the introduction of EnCicla, Latin America’s first bike-sharing scheme introduced to integrate university campuses with mass transit connections.
In April 2014, the city hosted the World Urban Forum’s seventh session on Urban Equity in Development.
Success stories
Latin America has outperformed all other continents in the Sustainable Transport Awards, with four of the 11 winners (two of them joint) since the 2005 inauguration of the scheme. The others are: Bogotá (Colombia), Guayaquil (Ecuador) and Mexico City (Mexico), making Colombia, with the US, the only countries to have two successful cities.
Hermes
Hermes is one of two sources of Indra’s new Urban Platform for Smart Cities Management and Safety, showcased at the November 2013 Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The other is its Sofia 2 solution, developed within the European Commission’s Smart Objects For Intelligent Applications (SOFIA) research and development project which support initiatives in energy efficiency, security and smart and sustainable urban transport.
Medellín, Colombia’s second city and a recognised leader in sustainable transport thinking, is rapidly extending its substantial existing investment in modern mobility. It is deploying both an enhanced integrated traffic management array and the country’s first intermodal public transportation management system.
The supplier of both, under separate €9 million (US$12.3 million) contracts, is Spanish engineering company
Indra has overlaid its
Initiated in 2009 to replace a very basic camera-based system, SIMM has been the subject of continuous development, deploying arrays of traffic sensors, CCTV (currently being extended), variable message signs (VMS), video detection and networked traffic signals. Introduced to monitor and integrate these subsystems for continuous real-time traffic tracking and incident detection, Hermes has added new information management and analytical capability based on the storage of current and historic data.
The 40 shift-working operators at the traffic control centre, which XM began running in 2011, now have enhanced access to multiple data sources. They can view real-time road conditions at 48 strategically-chosen points across the city as the basis for faster decision-making and incident response, while drivers receive timelier alerts via variable message signs, social media (
The traffic control centre now works in coordination with other transport operations in which UNE Epm is also a technological partner, including Medellín’s emergency response centre. An automatic vehicle location component, for example, enables on-street traffic patrols to monitor the locations of police vehicles and, with integration into the centre’s incident management capability, improve the allocation of resources and safety-critical reaction times.
With a population of 3.5 million living in the topographically-restricted metropolitan area, Medellín has a long history of congestion, leading in 2005 to the introduction of licence plate-based peak hour restrictions. A 2011 review found that this did reduce peak congestion, but at the same time moved flows to off-peak periods, because many of the drivers affected preferred to continue using their own cars but change their times of travel, so creating a ‘constant rush’.
A year later, this prompted academics at the Medellín campus of the National University of Colombia to make the first research-based statement of the ‘necessity’ of implementing charging in the city. This, they argued, would remove restrictions on car use and give all drivers a choice.
Public transport
Continuing traffic problems have highlighted the parallel importance of encouraging non-car travel. The public transport element of the current deployment - made up of two contracts, both finishing in 2014 – aims to increase ridership through the closer integration of the city’s metro and bus services.For this, Indra is delivering its operations assistance system to Metroplús, the city’s bus rapid transit network. The company is integrating its operations assistance system with its DaVinci technology, which has been managing the city’s subway train traffic since 2008. Developed in conjunction with ADIF, the state-owned company responsible for managing Spain’s railway infrastructure, DaVinci has won an IBM Beacon Award in the travel and transportation category.
Operations assistance system components – onboard GPS-based management and GIS-based automatic vehicle location; and a mobile communications infrastructure based on GPRS and 3G technology – feed into a public transport control centre. This monitors service levels to allow operators to make rapid decisions to deal with the effects of incidents or delays, and generates statistical data for management information.
A CCTV-based passenger counting system registers numbers boarding and exiting each bus, recording occupancy levels to prevent the risk of overcrowding, enable the deployment of backup vehicles at peak periods, and give statistical support for future service planning. A key aim is to achieve more unified operations, with special emphasis on the scope for interchange.
The L1 and L2 bus rapid transit lines share most of a main line route and the new technology gives line interchange information using a new in-bus passenger information system. These lines also connect with the metro.
The aim is to keep service operators informed on the movements of all public transport vehicles in the city, as well as on the status of potential links available at interchanges - taking transfer times into consideration. If the synchronisation of services necessary for practical interchange looks like being at risk, the system makes it possible to manage the consequences.
When, for example, a metro train is going to be delayed by, say, two minutes in reaching a particular station, the system can alert the drivers of buses scheduled to pick up from that station to delay their departure. There is also the potential for the city to ‘reward’, with better services, passengers willing to travel at specific times of day; and favour designated access or exit routes to and from areas of particularly heavy load – such as before or after sports events.
The set up includes provision to incorporate planned trams on the 4.3km, nine-station, low-emission Ayacucho Green Corridor tramway which is due to open in mid-2015. It will improve connections with suburbs to the east of the city, and link up with the existing cable car network (see below).
Passengers will also benefit from the existing integrated fare payment already available across all modes. Built into the integration programme is future scope for the public transport and traffic control systems to work in coordination, for example during an emergency.
An innovating city
In 2013 Medellín beat 200 entries including New York and Tel Aviv to win the Innovative City of the Year award. The citation stated that ‘few cities have transformed the way that Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city, has in the past 20 years, with innovative transport as a key enabler’. To overcome historic socio-economic divides, and drug-based crime rates, the city has built public libraries and schools, and laid out parks, in poor hillside neighbourhoods, and then created a series of innovative links from these to its commercial and industrial centres.Cutting journey times from an hour or more to half an hour or less, these links consist of a cable car network, dating from 2006; and a giant, free-to-use escalator, climbing a distance of 385m (the equivalent of a 28-storey building). Cable car stations have spawned busy local markets on the hillsides.
The year before, 2012, Medellín shared the international Sustainable Transport Award with San Francisco.
Bestowed by the New York, US-based Institute for Transport and Development Policy, the Sustainable Transport Award acknowledged the city’s expansion, during the previous year, of its already ‘significant investments’ in sustainable transportation. The citation acknowledged the use of ‘progressive techniques’, including the SIMM intelligent mobility system, increasing deployment of rapid transit buses, ridesharing programmes and the introduction of EnCicla, Latin America’s first bike-sharing scheme introduced to integrate university campuses with mass transit connections.
In April 2014, the city hosted the World Urban Forum’s seventh session on Urban Equity in Development.
Success stories
Latin America has outperformed all other continents in the Sustainable Transport Awards, with four of the 11 winners (two of them joint) since the 2005 inauguration of the scheme. The others are: Bogotá (Colombia), Guayaquil (Ecuador) and Mexico City (Mexico), making Colombia, with the US, the only countries to have two successful cities.
Hermes
Hermes is one of two sources of Indra’s new Urban Platform for Smart Cities Management and Safety, showcased at the November 2013 Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The other is its Sofia 2 solution, developed within the European Commission’s Smart Objects For Intelligent Applications (SOFIA) research and development project which support initiatives in energy efficiency, security and smart and sustainable urban transport.
