Data Fusion

Provides the first answer to the question of which is the most adequate processing to extract information of the highest quality from sensor data. The most frequent technological urban scenario for data gathering has been, up until now, poor and limited. Traditional technologies are expensive and only provide a single type of data. The uprising of ICT is quickly changing this perspective. A Smart City is monitored through a spread of independent data sources (loops, magnetometers, CCTV, Bluetooth, GPS...) that leads to a heterogeneous and possibly inconsistent data set. How to exploit multisensor data in the most efficient way in order to generate added value consistent information? Data Fusion combines a sequence of processes based on statistical techniques, filtering and traffic flow modelling, all of them designed to extract the best possible information and it even includes short-term data prediction and the calculation of the local traffic state.

Traffic Prediction

Information from present sources:

• is limited to main arterials
• does not have predictive capacities

Traffic prediction based on historic analysis is simple but very unreliable given the chaotic nature of traffic. How to calculate the traffic state of a whole large area if just a small sample of traffic measurements is available? Betterways makes use of traffic models. Traffic models are similar to weather models: data from a set of strategic locations is gathered and then the state and evolution of the whole system is calculated. And reliability is achieved through rolling horizon updates, every few minutes, so that reliable short term predictions are achieved, with the capacity to forecast sharp changes and atypical situations.

Transport Planning

We apply our best knowledge and experience to the analysis and improvement of mobility, from a strategic to a tactic level, or for the impact analysis of changes under assessment.

We offer services for Transport Estimation and Transport Planning and we have been successfully using traffic assignment as the most efficient tool for the analysis of average and global parameters. When already existing infrastructures are considered a factor to take into account is whether they will be able to absorb the future demand. When new developments are being considered it has to be evaluated whether they will also be beneficial when the future demand is taken into account. There are other questions like public transport, road works and civil works such as commercial centres or stadiums. During the last decades traffic assignment has proven to be an efficient and effective tool.

Traffic Management

The improvement of urban traffic faces two challenges simultaneously: the concentration of population in urban areas and the lack of viability or return from traditional solutions, such as the increase of infrastructures.

This is the time for looking for innovative solutions, for investigating, trials and deployment. We frequently hear about shared vehicles, 'bicing', urban tolls and very many other novelties. Betterways goes into this field with the Macro Fundamental Diagram and with systems for dynamic evaluation (KPIs) of control plans. The MFD is a method for quantifying the global state of the traffic network and supports strategic decision making to avoid congestions. Even though it is possible to identify average traffic states for the different day-types and time periods, truth is that there are significant variations affecting those averages. KPIs allow identifying alternative options to that of the usual control plan in order to maximize the network's capacity, supporting decision making about local traffic control.

Dynamic Toll

The dominant international trend is that of a change from fixed to variable prices as a function of the demand. It is clearly visible for the citizen in cases like flights and hotels. This trend is gaining weight in the field of tolls. In the same way as with flights and hotels, a low price will lead to full sales, but with a loss of benefits if the price is too low. In fact the case for tolls is a more delicate one, because too much demand leads to congestion, with the corresponding collapse of the level of service and income.

Betterways implements systems for dynamic setting of optimum toll prices in real time. Through demand prediction it is possible to establish the optimum toll price for short time periods in a proactive way, the toll price that will stimulate or soften demand, in order to maximize flow but without running into congestion and so maximize the return of the infrastructure for the driver, the public administration and the company.

Fleet Management

Betterways provides software solutions for fleet planning and management for fleets for goods distribution.

A manager of a fleet counts with a finite fleet of vehicles that don't have to be similar, a network of clients and a list of commands. The first task is that of a global process to calculate the optimum route for each vehicle to cover all the orders in a minimum time achieving, simultaneously, a maximum productivity and the full satisfaction of the clients.

But this initial plan will not hold as time goes by, as events such as new orders, incidents, breakdowns or unexpected congestions take place. A system for dynamic management has to undertake a new planning that maintains an optimum operational performance of resources as a function of the objectives and priorities of the company.

There is a wide range of options for management that depend on factors like the degree of dynamics, pooling, clustering, time window width or proactive policies.