Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - GHOST (Galileo EnHancement as BoOster of the Smart CiTies)

Teaser

With the increase of the density of people in urban areas, modern cities experience significant needs related to planning, maintenance and administration. As a result, many cities are engaged in massive investment for infrastructure development across many structural elements...

Summary

With the increase of the density of people in urban areas, modern cities experience significant needs related to planning, maintenance and administration. As a result, many cities are engaged in massive investment for infrastructure development across many structural elements including water supply, lighting, maintenance, traffic and transportation systems, refuse disposal and all the factors which form a part of the completed city.
The public transportation systems, assisting the movement of people in urban areas using group travel technologies such as buses and trains, are continuously evolving in terms of areas coverage, comfort and technology. Such systems can be exploited by the cities in order to serve both private and social benefits including:
• Maintenance of infrastructure such as lighting, road deteriorations etc.
• Inspection of points of interests such as parking spaces, garbage collection points etc.
• Provision of services to the private sector such as inspection of advertisement points (billboard, bus stop, etc.).

The GHOST intelligent system was designed and developed based on a camera and a GALILEO receiver, integrated in mobile vehicles used for public transport. Such a system enables to automatically take pictures of predefined Points Of Interest (POI) along the public transport networks, based on the accurate position of the mobile vehicle. Such GALILEO geo-tagged pictures are a key enabler for the creation of several new services.

The GHOST concept was based on the following principles:
• Deployment of the GHOST intelligent transport system on vehicles of the public networks (buses & cars).
• Pre-defined localization of the Points of Interest along the bus lines.
• Automatic snapshots collection of POI during the operation of the bus lines and automatic transfer to a centralized database.
• Processing of the snapshots for:
o Reporting of street lighting anomalies.
o Reporting of road deteriorations.
o Detection of occupied parking reserved for disabled drivers by unauthorized vehicles.
o Garbage monitoring (processed only image parts related to privacy issues).

The solution is also extended to citizens through a dedicated GHOST mobile App, free-of charge and already downloadable from the main App Markets. Thanks to it and on voluntary basis, citizens can contribute by collecting geo-localized snapshots using their smartphones when they are detecting any anomalies on city infrastructures. This engagement enhances the overall system and gives a key role to people, supporting not only the development of smart cities but also creating smart citizens.

Work performed

The GHOST project has achieved significant results. The main prototypes include:
• GHOST intelligent monitoring system for smart cities based on GALILEO (Integrated prototype at TRL6).
• Remote data acquisition system/box enabled with Camera, GNSS receiver, 3G/WiFi communication (Prototype subsystem at TRL6).
• Web portal and datapool for remote data acquisition storage and management (Prototype subsystem at TRL6).
• Image processing module for potholes, lighting anomalies, parking badges recognition (Prototype subsystem at TRL6).
• Smarthphone application for georeferenced photos (Prototype subsystem at TRL6).

The following demonstrations and trials of the integrated GHOST prototype and its different subsystems took place.
• GHOST System demonstration in Turin/Italy in June 2016
• GHOST System demonstration in Belgrade/Serbia in July-August 2016
• GHOST System demonstration in Cuneo/Italy in November-December 2016
• GHOST System demonstration in Belgrade/Serbia in November-December 2016

Following the data collected during the demonstrations, a performance analysis related to GALILEO was performed.
The IPRs of the project results have been defined as well as the main sharing principles and a Business Plan was also prepared towards the commercialization of the GHOST system.

Final results

The main innovation points of the GHOST solution include:
• Generic solution based on image processing, addressing various needs in a city environment (Lighting anomalies monitoring, Road deteriorations monitoring, Parking spaces monitoring).
• Direct exploitation of GALILEO benefits
• INS/GNSS algorithm that exploits GALILEO system.
• Scalable image processing and computer vision module with extendable algorithms supporting additional functionality and use cases.

Currently, the administration maintenance and monitoring activities are taking place mainly by inspection from relative personnel at specific places (points of interest). Although there have been some attempts to automate such procedures, these are targeting only a specific problem. There is not an integrated solution available, enabling automated infrastructure monitoring, fulfilling the main needs in a city environment. It is important to implement solutions that will allow efficient and cost effective systems to operate and maintain.
The GHOST system has the aim to benefit mostly citizens and public administrations. In this sense, several positive impacts are envisioned in the smart cities environment.
By using GHOST services, municipalities/ public administrations are able to efficiently detect illegal parking situations and deteriorations of city infrastructure (roads and lights).
This efficiency, in turn, translates into a timely reaction in the provision of solutions to the identified problems.
More in detail, the better detection of illegal parking situations helps reducing the traffic congestions and accidents and in the particular cases of disabled-reserved and residents-reserved parking slots/ areas, it helps in providing a better quality of life for the citizens.
The better detection of deteriorations on a city’s road and the anomalies on public lighting help on reducing accidents and also provides a better quality of life for the citizens.
From the economic standpoint, it is expected that the implementation and thorough usage of GHOST within a city, would help the public administration and the public and/ or private companies to which the services are contracted (e.g. garbage collection) on reducing the expenditures on their patrols used for the control of their activities. For example, a municipality could have a contract with the provider of public lighting, to which the payment is based on an agreed service level; the public administration could easily and affordably assess whether this service levels are met.
Although the current application of the GHOST concept is in road public transportation, the solution is generic enough and applicable for other markets and location based services including rail infrastructures management, airport platforms, industrial sites and others.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.ghost-project.eu.