Lorenzo Maraia, head of traffic and safety management at Movyon, reveals how the firm’s Traffic Management Platform is exploiting data and AI to improve efficiency and road safety.
Tell us about Movyon’s Traffic Management Platform.
Movyon’s Traffic Management Platform is an integrated suite of ITS solutions designed to offer motorway and road concessionaires and public administrations an integrated tool capable of monitoring traffic and orchestrating all devices and applications for highly evolved and automated traffic management. It is the result of 20 years of experience acquired by implementing and integrating technologies on the entire Autostrade per l’Italia Group network, one of the main concessionaires at European level for which Movyon is a center of excellence for research and innovation.
The platform collects data from multiple sources such as cameras, automatic incident detection systems, radars and sensors distributed along the road infrastructure, processes them in real-time thanks to powerful algorithms and then sends them to peripheral and central control centers. The information is thus already normalized and allows all strategies related to the detected events to be activated quickly, for a safer and easier travel experience.
On Autostrade per l’Italia’s network the Traffic Management Platform acquires more than one million pieces of data per second, interfaces with about 15,000 devices in real time and handles almost 500,000 events per year.
One of the key features of our platform is the ability to integrate and manage even very heterogeneous processes and systems. Our continuous investment in the best technologies allows us to integrate equipment from all major manufacturers into our solutions in plug-and-play mode, even if the customer needs to do so with existing systems.
How are you improving traffic safety?
We are increasing the number of sensors and video systems with AI in tunnels and in high-traffic motorway sections by integrating all monitoring systems into the Traffic Management Platform for immediate and automated activation of traffic and critical event management procedures, such as dynamic management of the available lanes.
We are also putting in place systems to monitor the transit of vehicles carrying dangerous goods or exceptional transports. This makes it possible to activate, in synergy with all those involved, specific procedures for this type of vehicle, such as the immediate activation of targeted actions in case of critical events.
We have also developed an innovative system for the dynamic monitoring of vehicles’ weights, also fully integrated into the Traffic Management Platform, which through the dynamic weighing sites installed detect situations of weight exceeding the permitted limit and notifies the driver and law enforcement agencies for possible intervention.
How can it help with emissions?
For example, Movyon recently activated a Dynamic Traffic Flow management system on the Autostrade per l’Italia network on a section near Milan which handles about 200,000 vehicles per day. This project will help save up to 1.5 tons of CO2 per hour. By means of radar, laser scanners and automatic incident detection systems, the platform scans traffic, detects events on the road and makes forecasts, opening and closing emergency lanes to traffic in an automated way to decongest or promptly manage critical events by securing the traffic flow.
What is Movyon’s long-term goal?
Movyon is currently present with projects in Europe, South America, and Africa and is continuously expanding. Wherever they are located, our customers are increasingly expressing interest in solutions that help them manage their infrastructure more efficiently, securely, and sustainably. To meet these needs, we consider it essential to make the most of data.
We also plan to continue to develop or find cutting-edge technologies, test them, integrate them, and translate them into ready-to-use solutions that clients can adopt from scratch or integrate into existing systems.