The Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS) is leading efforts to improve oil spill risk management in the Adriatic Sea. Through the NAMIRS (2022–2024) and ASAP (2024–2027) projects, OGS and its partners aim to strengthen transnational coordination and environmental protection across six Adriatic countries.

The challenge

The Adriatic Sea is a semi-enclosed and heavily trafficked basin, making it particularly vulnerable to accidental marine pollution from oil spills. A spill in one area can quickly spread and affect multiple countries’ waters and coasts. However, existing national contingency plans are often limited in scope, lack harmonization, and do not sufficiently address the transboundary nature of such risks. There is a pressing need for a regional, coordinated approach that combines prevention, preparedness, and rapid response capabilities among Adriatic countries.

The satellite solution

To estimate the potential exposure of sensitive areas to oil in case of a spill, the NAMIRS and ASAP projects relied on oil drift simulations. These were produced using a model nested within the Copernicus Marine Service physical ocean model of the Mediterranean Sea. This downscaling approach allows higher-resolution forecasting of ocean currents in the Adriatic, increasing the precision of oil dispersion scenarios. By integrating CMEMS data with regional modeling, the projects were able to simulate likely trajectories of oil spills under different weather and ocean conditions, improving both prevention planning and emergency response readiness.

The results

• Risk maps identifying high-priority areas for protection based on maritime traffic patterns, simulations, and expert input
• Resource mapping of the North Adriatic’s anti-pollution capacities (equipment, stakeholders, services)
• Training sessions in Trieste, Rijeka, and Koper to strengthen national response teams’ capacity, particularly for shoreline cleanup and operational coordination
• Updated Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to streamline cross-border response
• Under ASAP, these methods and tools will now be adapted and extended to the entire Adriatic basin, fostering region-wide cooperation and preparedness

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The Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA) and the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS) play a key role in Italy’s marine environmental monitoring. As part of the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), they rely on Earth observation to improve the national evaluation of Good Environmental Status (GES).

The Challenge

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) was established to protect marine ecosystems and the biodiversity on which human health and marine-based economic and social activities depend. Among the 11 descriptors defined by the directive, Descriptor 5 (D5) focuses on eutrophication—the excessive enrichment of water with nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, leading to algal blooms, oxygen depletion, and ecosystem imbalance. Monitoring eutrophication is essential to evaluate Good Environmental Status (GES) and ensure long-term ecosystem health, particularly in areas such as the Mediterranean Sea, where anthropogenic pressures are high and spatial coverage of in situ measurements is often limited.

The satellite solution

For the 2016–2021 MSFD implementation period, ISPRA and OGS used Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS) physical and biogeochemical reanalysis data, applying bias correction with national in situ monitoring data to refine model accuracy in coastal zones. Key parameters such as chlorophyll-a, dissolved inorganic nitrogen, phosphate, and oxygen were analysed. Satellite data complemented in situ measurements and allowed broader coverage, including waters beyond 12 nautical miles. Future integration of ARGO float data will further enhance offshore monitoring.

The results

• National GES assessment for Descriptor 5 supported by CMEMS reanalysis data, with improved resolution in coastal areas through in situ integration.
• Extension of eutrophication monitoring to offshore waters thanks to planned use of ARGO float observations.
• Availability of consistent datasets beyond 12 nautical miles, covering Italy’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
• Improved scientific understanding of eutrophication dynamics, with evidence of declining trends in specific regions such as the Adriatic.
• Contribution to national compliance with the MSFD and Water Framework Directive (WFD), and support to ecosystem restoration and sustainable marine management.

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Blue Thread

Blue Thread S.r.l. is a small Italian company based in Rome and founded in 2019. The company’s mission is to develop technological solutions for the maritime and nautical world. By using a multi-technological approach that integrates different knowhows, the company aims at responding to the multiple challenges that the maritime domain faces, from improving navigation to monitoring the access to ports and remote marine areas.

Blue Thread collaborates with international and national research centres, such as the University of Tor Vergata in Rome and the Istituto Superiore Mario Boella in Turin. In addition, Blue Thread also developed a fleet monitoring application prototype for sailing races with a wide range of features, such as an optimised start strategy, a lay line determination, and a racecourse registration.

The challenge

According to the FAO’s definition, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are marine geographical areas that need greater protection than the surrounding waters for biodiversity conservation or fishery management purposes. In its geographic diversity, Italy counts around 29 MPAs across the country. Each of these areas is classified according to the protection needed, based on natural, geomorphological, physical, scientific, economic, and educational relevance.

Monitoring and safeguarding MPAs is a complicated task for the local authorities responsible for these areas, due to their extension and to the financial resources required to protect their biodiversity. When it comes to MPAs that are touristic destinations, like the MPA in Porto Cesareo in the Apulia region, monitoring the flux of tourists, their activities, and behaviours, becomes quite challenging.

The satellite solution

In 2019, Blue Thread developed Blue Discovery, a GNSS-based mobile app free to download and available for IOS and Android. The app is complemented by a web-GIS and an Operational Portal that could be managed by the MPA authorities. This was the case for the MPA of Porto Cesareo, that tested the app during the Summers of 2020 and 2021. Blue Discovery allows visitors to get information on the rules to access and visit the marine protected area, on the itineraries to follow, and on the spots of interest in the area surrounding the MPA. The app relies on GNSS technology embedded in smartphones and allows the authorities responsible for managing the MPA to have reliable information and increased position accuracy on the visitors of the areas through the Operational Portal.

A crowdsourcing function of the app allows visitors to send to the area’s managing authority short reports on the sighting of protected species or on environmental crimes. Visitors can upload on the app geo-referenced photos of what they see with the time on which they took them, together with additional details to help the local authorities to intervene in real-time. Furthermore, Blue Discovery provides visitors with the opportunity to request, pay, and issue permits for activities to be carried out in the MPA directly on the app.  All the data collected by the visitors are immediately visualised by the authority on the web portal, which becomes a database of events happening in the protected area that can be monitored by the authorities and used for reporting.

The results

The app allowed the authorities of the marine protected area of Porto Cesareo to monitor the flow of visitors and to keep track of their position in the area. The Blue Discovery app helped the authority of Porto Cesareo to optimise the time and resources deployed to patrol the area, and to validate the fares paid by the visitors and their permits.

Blue Discovery is constantly under development to better support the authorities in charge of managing marine natural areas. Today, Blue Thread is planning to include Earth observation imagery in the app, with the aim to provide additional support for navigation routes, thanks to the implementation of ad hoc ship detection maps. Lastly, Blue Thread is planning to include in the app the Galileo Commercial Authentication Service (CAS), that will provide authenticated, certified positioning, to avoid privacy and legal issues between the visitors and the MPA’s authorities.

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BIVI Srl

BIVI Srl is an Italian micro-enterprise active in the aquaculture sector and mainly responsible for molluscs offshore farming. The company counts five employees and is based on the Adriatic coast, in Civitanova Marche.

BIVI Srl focuses its production mainly on mussel farming and partially on oyster farming. Every year, the company produces an average of 4-6 tons of cupped oysters and 150 tons of mussels. BIVI Srl operates mainly in Italy, specifically in the Marche region, and its customers are both local wholesalers and companies from the Ho.Re.Ca. (Hôtellerie-Restaurant-Café) supply chain.

The objective of BIVI Srl is to fully standardise and increase the production of cupped oysters (Crassostrea gigas). In addition to this, the company aims at implementing a full farming and production cycle of edulis oysters (also known as flat oyster), an indigenous oyster species of the Adriatic basin.

The challenge

Aquaculture represents a source of sustainable and high-quality sea food products. As for the agriculture sector, aquafarming companies are looking for detailed and precise information to plan the optimal time to harvest and sell their products. Besides this, climate change effects are impacting the production and seasonal trends related to the harvesting of molluscs. Companies working in aquaculture are now searching for innovative solutions to collect information to monitor environmental parameters (water temperature, sea-level rise, water eutrophication, etc.), and associated risks, in order to optimise the management of the production sites.

In the specific case of BIVI Srl, the company is facing a series of challenges related to the frequent droughts that cause a depletion of nutrients and phytoplankton, with negative impacts on product quality (low meat products). The risk is a reduction of the production impacting the profit margins. In particular, the company needs to assess chlorophyll levels, which reflect phytoplankton density and composition, and compare them with those of the previous years.

The Satellite Solution

Satellite imagery proves to be a useful tool to collect timely information on a specific maritime area and to develop cost-effective solutions for aquafarmers.

Back in 2019, BIVI Srl — as a member of the Italian Association of Mediterranean Aquafarmers (AMA) — participated in a project funded by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Policies (MIPAAF), which aimed at fostering the adoption of new technologies in the aquaculture sector.

Within this framework, the Italian SME Planetek, in collaboration with Blue Farm, a spin-off of the Ca’ Foscari University, , developed a service platform for fish farmers called Rheticus Aquaculture, mainly oriented towards molluscs harvesting.

Rheticus Aquaculture is a subscription and cloud-based service that provides geospatial information data and forecasting models and statistics based on information derived from satellites and in situ observations.

The service provides weekly information on parameters, such as chlorophyll concentration and temperature trends, mussels’ weight and growth prediction: information needed for predicting the economic value of the harvest according to the variation of the listed parameters.

The information included in the Rheticus service is a combination of satellite images, cartographic and environmental information available online as open data. Great support to the service comes from the software MITILAB, which provides in one single platform all the information on the work done and stocks on the harvesting area, such as maps and harvesting techniques.

The service is composed of two parts: a weekly bulletin sent by mail by MITILAB. The bulletin can be also consulted on a tablet that can be carried around by the aquafarmers. The other part consists of in situ observations, initially used to assess the growth prediction models.

After that, on the basis of satellite data and production batches, the service elaborates the weekly bulletin where chlorophyll and temperature data are expressed graphically comparing the data of the current year with previous years data as benchmark. The MITILAB software, based on a layout of the production units, can be updated daily, including all the needed information on the stocks (quantities, estimated growth, position, last grading/division, etc.).

Satellite data represent the main component of Rheticus Aquaculture. Sentinel-3 images and Copernicus CMEMS data are integrated into the platform. In addition, Blue Farm developed an algorithm based on Earth Observation data enabling the assessment of mussel’s growth rate.

The purpose of the system is to provide mussels farmers with data and forecasts that can be downloaded from the platform and easily understood even without a technical background.

The results

Rheticus Aquaculture was used by BIVI Srl and other aquafarms along the Adriatic coast between 2019 and 2020, only for mussels farming.

The solution provided the company with clear and periodical information on chlorophyll levels in the Adriatic Sea and a forecast of the expected growth of mussels.

The service helped BIVI Srl to optimise time and to better plan the harvesting season. In particular, BIVI relied on the information related to the weekly mussels’ growth, including seeding data, stocking dates, 7-day forecast of mussel growth, and the comparative analysis between the current growth rate and the previous growing season.

Moreover, BIVI Srl retrieved historical data on chlorophyll concentrations over the last 10 years, which were very useful to better understand the on-going climate change effects on the harvesting.

This first version of Rheticus Aquaculture will be further improved to better respond to the needs of fish farmers like BIVI Srl who are looking for updated information on molluscs. Planetek is currently upgrading the service, co-designing a new customised service that will include weather conditions and forecasts for aquafarmers. To make the platform as user-friendly as possible, Planetek is planning to make the service available as a mobile app.

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The Historic Centre of Florence, in Italy, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1982. The city attracts millions of tourists from all over the world. In 2018, 10.6 million tourists visited Florence.

The Economic Activities and Tourism Department of the Municipality is responsible for promoting and managing tourism in Florence. Their main challenge is to sustain the city cultural offer, while mitigating the side effects of tourist pressure on the historic centre.

The challenge

Most tourists in Florence are concentrated in the Historic City Centre, an area of approximately five km². To mitigate overcrowding, the Department decided to adopt dedicated measures to guide tourists towards alternative thematic itineraries.

The satellite solution

Among the measures implemented, the Department launched Firenze Game, a mobile app combining digital gaming and city tours. Targeting schools and kids up to 12 years old, the app aims at stimulating players to learn more about the city while supporting the need of the Municipality to delocalise tourists from major attractions.

Firenze Game relies on Satellite Navigation to guide the young players (and their families) among different itineraries, challenging them to look closely at Florence’s hidden beauties and less known stories. Players can create their avatars and get a set of cards, classified by historical periods. Cards are automatically unlocked through geo-located check-ins. While moving around, the players can gain new cards by localising themselves close to squares, monuments and museums. The more unknown or remote a location is, the more the value of the cards to be collected increases.

The location data are acquired through the mobile device and then combined with city maps retrieved from Open Street Map. The free app was developed in Italian and English by the Municipality of Florence with Linea Comune, Muse and Digital Fun/TuoMuseo, an international collective of artists, game and sound designers, developers, and 3D animators.

The results

The geo-localisation of the player translates the digital and gaming experience into a physical one. The app has been developed so as to allow the Tourist Department to autonomously update and add maps. These can be redrawn from scratch with geo-referenced information.

A cross between PokemonGo and a sticker album, Firenze Game merges the digital and analogical worlds to offer dedicated tourist and educational experiences to youngsters. At the same time, the app represents an innovative way to manage tourist flows in a smart and engaging fashion.

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ANCI is the National Association of Italian Municipalities. ANCI Tuscany is the organisation in charge of enhancing the institutional, regulatory, financial and organisational autonomy of Municipalities in the Tuscany Region, and of representing the interests of Tuscan municipalities in their relationships with the Tuscany Region and the Italian Government.

ANCI offers consultancy, training and support to the Tuscan municipalities, collecting their instances and bringing them to the regional and national levels.

The challenge

The acronym WEEE indicates the waste of electrical and electronic equipment. Nowadays, the growing production of electronic equipment with an increasingly short lifecycle generates an ever growing amount of WEEE. These are not only composed of metals and plastics, but also contain heavy metals and substances which are particularly pollutant, threatening the environment and human health.

Even in regions like Tuscany, where waste separation is well spread, these materials often end up in the undifferentiated waste bin. Indeed, the general public has little knowledge of how to dispose of their electric waste. At the same time, public authorities know very little about the way they are disposed, while the companies dealing with the installation or distribution of electronic equipment are rarely involved in their collection.

The satellite solution

In 2017, with the objectives of fostering the collection and disposal of electronic waste and to sensitise private companies and citizens on the issue, ANCI Tuscany launched the LifeWeee project. The project is co-funded by LIFE Environmental Governance and Information, the European Commission’s financial instrument for the environment, and is implemented by ANCI Tuscany in collaboration with the Tuscany Region, the Department of Information Engineering and the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of Florence, the Trade Chambers of Tuscany and Seville (Spain), and Ecocerved Scarl. It aims at generating a behavioural change in the disposal of electronic equipment and at engaging private companies and public administrations in the design and implementation of an adequate WEEE’s collection system, as a first step towards the recycling of WEEE’s components.

Among other actions, the project partners developed a software to help companies managing the paperwork related to the transport of WEEE and to allow the collection of WEEE on their premises. Moreover, they developed the LifeWeee mobile App, geolocating all collection and disposal sites in Tuscany with satellite navigation.

When electronic devices end their lifecycle, their owners can localise the closest disposal site on the App and calculate the best itinerary to reach it. This is made possible by the satellite navigation system embedded into their mobile devices. The users can then select the kind and number of WEEE to be disposed within a list of items. The App will tell which materials will be recycled, the amount of CO2 saved thanks to the disposal and the number of corresponding kilometres by car.

The results

The App represents an important tool to engage citizens and private companies in the collection and disposal of WEEE in Tuscany and provides ANCI and all project partners with important information to better target policies aimed at managing electronic waste in Tuscany. For the time being, the App only includes disposal sites in the Tuscany region, but its geographical coverage could be extended to neighbouring regions and to the whole national territory. The App is available for free and will continue to exist after the completion of the LifeWeee project in August 2020. The Department of Information Engineering of the University of Florence will take care of updating the list of disposal points in the App.

As of today (April 2020), 423 collection points in the Tuscany Region and 224 collection points in Andalusia are recorded in the App.

Thanks to the LifeWeee App, residents can identify and reach the closest collection and disposal sites for WEEE, hence facilitating the work of public administrations and private companies to recycle the materials contained in electronic devices”, Rosa Schina, ANCI Tuscany

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One of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, Matera is known for the historical “Sassi” ancient cave houses dating to the Palaeolithic period. The Sassi, together with the Park of Rupestrian Churches, were included in the UNESCO World Heritage list.

The challenge

The #BariMatera5G project aims to test the potential of 5G connectivity in the cities of Bari and Matera. In Matera the project foresaw the creation of an archaeological map of the city and of the suburban area and a Digital Atlas of Rupestrian Heritage in Matera (DARHEM).

The satellite solution:

To realise the 3D Digital Atlas, the School of Archaeology collaborated with Digital Lighthouse to experiment using 5G. The 3D Digital Atlas was developed through the analysis of bibliographic documentation, the study of frescoes and sculptures, and the analysis of degradation and of the geo-archaeological risk. The data archive has been digitised and the entire area surveyed using photo-modelling software and digital photogrammetry.

The results

The result is a 3D reconstruction of some of the rupestrian churches of the archaeological site of Matera, like the Church of Santa Agnese and the Church of Madonna delle Tre Porte, which can be visualised online by anyone.

The 5G network allows multiple persons in different locations to meet a local guide in a virtual reality environment and to visit the 3D reconstruction of some pointsof the Sassi and of the rupestrian complex of Madonna delle Virtù, San Nicola dei Greci and of the Crypt of the Original Sin, all on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Visitors are free to move in the planned areas and to manipulate available objects. Within the virtual tours, low latency allows for interaction between visitors. They can even appreciate details that are no longer present in reality (e.g. decorations of a church gone lost or damaged), hence living experiences not replicable in “real life”.

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Vasto is a hilltop town on the Adriatic coast in southern Abruzzo, Italy. The City counts 41.000 inhabitants on an area of 70.65 km2. With a notable medieval centre, several buildings dating from the 15^th century and a long coast including a natural reserve, the City is one of the main holiday destinations in Abruzzo, especially during the summer season.

The Department of Transport, Sustainable Mobility and Smart City of Vasto was created in 2014 with the task of designing and implementing the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP). The SUMP should facilitate intermodal transport in town, regulating and coordinating all urban mobility options, including trains, public buses, areas with traffic restrictions, parking spots, etc. Moreover, the Department is in charge of promoting green transport modes.

The challenge

The guidelines provided to local administrations by the European Commission foresee that Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans are developed in cooperation across different policy areas and levels of administration and with citizens and other stakeholders.

Hence, in order to build the Plan, the Municipality must screen needs and perceptions of inhabitants concerning urban mobility. The first step to collect such feedback is to provide stakeholders with all available information on mobility in the city.

The satellite solution

During the consultations organised by the City Hall to discuss the implementation of the SUMP, the Youth National Confederation of Artisans (CNA) proposed to build a web portal making available information on urban and regional mobility. Launched in November 2018, the VAMOS portal (Vasto Sustainable Mobility) will include all available information on public transport, free and paying parking, parking for persons with impaired mobility, green areas, restricted traffic areas, walking paths, cycling routes and electric bikes, among others. All these assets are geolocated through satellite navigation and users can click on the online maps to calculate their itineraries and be guided to their destinations.

Moreover, the portal includes information on iBike Abruzzo, the service of electric bike sharing recently created. The service is based on the MyCicero App, allowing users to register, manage payments and discover itineraries and charging stations in the territory. So far, five electric bike stations have been set up. Both the stations and the bikes are geolocated with satellite navigation, allowing users and service managers to know the position of the bikes in real time and to collect information on users’ itineraries. The iBike system has been implemented with the financial contribution of the Abruzzo region by a local SME working in the field of sustainable buildings and the consortium of commercial and tourist actors of Vasto Marina, the lower part of the city facing the Adriatic coast.

The results

The VAMOS platform allows inhabitants and visitors of Vasto to plan their itineraries within and around the city by combining different transport modes. The platform is currently being presented to the citizens through consultations and meetings. The feedback collected through such activities will be used by the Department of Sustainable Mobility to design the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan.

In the future, the VAMOS platform will also include information on the car sharing service to be created and on the bus regional routes. Regional buses are already geolocated through satellite navigation. Indeed, the regional bus company Di Fonzo is part of the Polo Inoltra, a cluster of over 70 regional companies aimed at enhancing innovation in the sectors of mobility and logistics. When regional buses will be included in the VAMOS platform, users will be able to check their exact position in real time and to better plan their trip to Vasto. Today, the company includes the transport of a bike in the bus ticket. If current initiatives will be sustained, the VAMOS platform will allow the city to attract a greater number of cycling enthusiasts.

Moreover, the geolocated shared bikes are already providing the Department of Sustainable Mobility with precious information on cyclists and their itineraries. Such data could be used by the City to plan for the construction of new cycling routes according to users’ needs and even to adjust to traffic fluxes the price of advertisements on public routes.

Making available and geolocating all the information concerning mobility in the city is a crucial step in enhancing intermodal transport and green mobility. In particular, the information provided by the built-in GPS on electric bikes will allow us to better manage existing cycling routes and to plan for improvements in the future”.

Paola Cianci, Minister for the Environment, City of Vasto

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The Alario Foundation promotes the natural, cultural and historical heritage of Cilento, a geographical area in the South of Campania, Italy. Declared a World Heritage Site, the area hosts the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park and important Greek and Roman sites, including the ruins of Paestum and of the city of Velia.

The challenge

To increase the number of visitors during the winter months, the Foundation wished to offer a full immersion experience in the places and the habits of the ancient civilizations of the region. However, it faced the problem of how to revive buildings and lifestyles that have past. How to enable contemporaries to visit cities of which only ruins remain? These questions led the Foundation to turn to other Italian cultural and research centres.

The satellite solution

In 2008, the Foundation inaugurated the permanent exhibition “Visione del Tempo – Tempo di Visione”.

One of the four exhibition rooms hosts a 3D reconstruction of the Greek site of Locri on Google Earth images, developed by the University of Calabria. Through an avatar, visitors can explore a 3D virtual model of the site and admire the monuments as they appeared in the 4th Century BC. In addition, a smartphone application is available for visitors on the spot: using satnav to pinpoint one’s position, the user can visualise the ancient scenario around and access explanatory texts, videos and images.

Another room hosts a 3D reconstruction of the ancient Roman road Via Flaminia and the Domus of Livia. The sites have been re-constructed by the Institute for Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage (CNR-ITABC) through an Open Source 3D webGIS application, using satellite and aerial images to map the buildings and the landscape and satnav to calculate the distance between the elements of the landscape and the buildings. Visitors can move their chosen avatar between contemporary images and 3D reconstructions of the site in the 1st Century BC, and can also interact with objects and with the ancient inhabitants of the area.

The results

The exhibition, unique in the Italian context, attracts approximately 2,000 visitors per year. The use of avatars, augmented reality and mobile devices makes the contents appealing even for the youngest. The project on Ancient Rome has received the Italian e-Content Award 2008 for e-Learning and Culture.

The virtual museum shows what is possible when applying modern technologies to education and archaeology. Not only does it allow visitors to experience an authentic immersion into the past, but it also helps preserve archaeological evidence that would otherwise disappear for future generations.

“Innovative technologies applied to the study of the past are an extraordinary trigger to stimulate curiosity towards history and local traditions,” Giuliana Raimondo, Fondazione Alario per Elea – Velia ONLUS

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Bologna is the capital of the Emilia Romagna Region, in central Italy. Within the Land Management Department of the Municipality of Bologna, the Sustainable Mobility Sector is in charge of planning policies and infrastructure interventions to favour sustainable mobility. This involves, among other tasks, monitoring circulation and traffic management measures, including operations carried out by external contractors and/or other city administrations.

The challenge

With a metropolitan population of about a million people, Bologna is served by a network of public buses operated by the publicly-owned company TPER Ltd (Trasporto Passeggeri Emilia-Romagna). Bologna is too small to have an underground transport system, but too large to be crossed with a single bus line. Hence, passengers often need to change buses to move around the city. To promote the use of public buses and ensure the quality of the service, it is therefore important to inform users of the precise arrival times of buses and to guarantee that bus circulation is as smooth as possible.

The satellite solution

For over ten years, Bologna public buses have been equipped with GPS transmitters which regularly communicate their position to a central unit. Today, more than 1 000 buses use the Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system. The messages received by the central unit are automatically retransmitted to communicate the expected arrival times at the bus stops.

Moreover, Bologna’ centralised streetlight system adapts to traffic flows in real time, relying on the information provided by the AVL system and by a network of around 1 000 sensors placed under the street pavement, which monitor the number of cars on the street. Two minutes before approaching the traffic lights (detected through the GPS connection), buses send a message to the sensors nearby, allowing the central control unit to adapt the street light phases in real time so as to give priority green light to buses.

The result

Tests performed on a one-kilometre route showed that the system of sensors nearby traffic lights allows to save, in average, one and a half minutes on buses’ travel times. At large, the system ensures a greater regularity of buses arrival times and a considerable decrease of travel times.

Since 2012, the travel times of public buses collected through satellite navigation are made available as open data, allowing for the development of numerous apps to provide arrival times to users directly on their mobile devices. Moreover, the AVM data are used to calculate traffic congestion indexes which, thanks to an agreement with Google, can be visualised on Google Transit to inform users of traffic jams in the Municipality.

The AVM system, today operational on the totality of urban buses circulating in Bologna, will be soon extended to extra-urban bus lines.

“Satellite navigation proved to be a very valuable tool to improve circulation and enhance the use of public transport in Bologna”. Carlo Michelacci, Land Management Department, Sustainable Mobility Sector, Municipality of Bologna

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