Transport: the green transition passes through the digitization of services

The ecological and digital transitions are traveling in the same direction, with frequent opportunities for meeting. Because innovation offers unprecedented tools to address an epochal issue such as decarbonisation of the economy. Indications in this sense come, for example, from the sector of transportamong those most targeted for polluting emissions into the environment.

The European study on the trajectories of the sector

A study carried out byEuropean Environment Agency emphasizes that the digital technologies allow to mitigate the impacts of mobility: air pollution, noise, accidents and time wasted in congestion, soil consumption and increased greenhouse gas emissions. This is in theory, given that in practice digital solutions are not always implemented with criteria and the result is that a large part of the potential remains untapped. Without a change of course, warns the Community body, the European Green Deal risks missing the decarbonisation objectives (-90% by 2050) linked to the transport segment.

What is lacking in the Old Continent is not the technologies, but the skills to make the best use of them and the ability to put all the available solutions into a system, so as to generate a result that is greater than the sum of the various components. A integrated mobility thanks to digitalisationthe report recalls, can improve the safety and accessibility of passenger transport and could be used to support the transition to collective and shared mobility.

The solutions that have changed the face of cities

A change of course is needed as congestion levels in city centers continue to rise. According to various estimates, by 2050 almost 70% of the world’s population will live in a large city compared to 55% in 2018 and 60% by 2031. The urbanization trend it will not only have an impact on pollution, but also on the very livability of large cities, in which the capacity of the road networks is mostly saturated.

THE Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) they can provide important answers in various directions: access control to Ztl and low-emission urban areas; real-time monitoring of current and future traffic conditions and levels of pollution; predictive traffic management and control; driving safety, through technologies that allow transport infrastructures to communicate directly with vehicles, providing information and suggestions.

The experience of Yunex Traffic in London

An example of this comes from YunexTrafficacquired by Mundys during 2022, whose infrastructure e artificial intelligence platforms for the management of traffic flows and urban mobility they are used in over 600 cities (including London, Singapore, Miami, Bogotà). In the English capital it manages the access systems to the Ultra Low Emission Zone and, through its own smart traffic systemhas launched trials to intelligently manage the traffic lights in eleven city areas, achieving an initial reduction of more than 20% in emissions from cars (with peaks of up to 60%).

In light of this experience, Transport for London, London’s leading transport authority, has awarded Yunex Traffic a new £200m contract to install and maintain artificial intelligence traffic lights in 21 of London’s 32 boroughs and the City of London (including the Westminster area). Thus, starting from August and for the duration of ten years, the company manages the infrastructures for traffic regulation, creating the conditions for achieving the objectives of “Vision Zero for London”, the project on the sustainability of the London transport system , which provides for the substantial elimination – by 2041 – of serious accidents on city streets, as well as the achievement of 80% of city journeys on foot, by bicycle or by public transport