During spring and summer 2018, a yellow, autonomous, and very cute minibus (Line 249), has been operating in the nearly 400-meter-long hallway at the University Hospital of Zealand in Køge, south of Copenhagen, as Denmark's first autonomous bus in regular operation. Though the route is short, the need is there and the test line has been a huge success, carrying over 6.000 passengers in only 65 days of operation, among them many disabled persons. Here are some insights from the first phase of the Autonomous Hospital Bus Project.

Dear ITS World Congress Participant We are happy to present to you this Special Edition of the Danish magazine, Trafik&Veje – Traffic & Roads. In it, you will find a series of articles on ITS in a Nordic context, and we hope you will be inspired and informed by the way, we embrace ITS in the Nordic countries, from academia to tech-companies to road authorities. ITS – the Nordic way – is about joining forces in the quest for a safer and more reliable mobility, across many transport modes and across private and public businesses. We have a strong tradition for bicycling in our cities and for prioritizing innovations that keep all transportation users safe, during commuting. We rely on technology and innovations, but also on the participation to make our cities and transport as efficient and sustainable as possible. One of the game changers is Mobility-as-a-service that combines new technology – like driverless cars (and metros) – with smart transportation. Better information leads to better planning and use of resources and will ultimately get the commuter from one place to another right on time. Another giant leap is how big data from surveillance cameras, smart phones and devices are driving improvements in mobility and safety. Real time information and communication enables a more responsive and flexible infrastructure that is more considerate to the given situation and it also enables citizens to plan their journey and choose the right means of transport for the day. This again reduces the need for privately owned cars in cities and opens for smarter sharing of resources and improved utilisation of transport modes. ITS is a food chain of individual services and technology that combined help improving our quality of life. Together, we can work towards reducing our climatic impact, improving mobility and keeping our cities attractive and safe. Sharing experiences and learning news about ITS is part of this development, and we in the Nordic countries welcome the opportunity to share our ideas and products, and hopefully learn more about your ITS advances as well. Welcome to the ITS World Congress.

A sustainable city requires sustainable mobility. In 2013, the City of Copenhagen started working on a new generation of intelligent traffic solutions. The first step was to upgrade the traffic signal controllers. As a second step, the City organized a Public-Private Innovation (PPI), in which it challenged the industry and knowledge institutions to come up with innovative, yet realistic ideas for new intelligent traffic solutions. The third step builds on the successes of the first two steps and includes traffic signal optimization along a set of corridors, introducing a sensor network and a city traffic management system. The main question for the City of Copenhagen after the third step is now: “How to scale up the successful solutions and the use of these solutions in order to create a big impact and contribute significantly to the goal of being CO2 neutral by 2025?”. This question will be answered in this article.

The digital revolution is transforming transportation to serve an increasingly connected world. At Halmstad University, an important part of our mission is to prepare innovators to lead this transformation. Tomorrow’s innovators must wield a broad range of technical and social skills. More importantly, they must be able to pursue new knowledge and expertise when they need it. Here, we describe our approach to preparing tomorrow’s innovators at our School of Information Technology at Halmstad University.

This article presents new principles for managing signal-controlled intersections. By using machine learning and radar detection a controller has been developed using the optimization tool UPPAAL Stratego. Using VISSIM, the controller has been tested in four signal-controlled intersections . The simulation shows that in comparison with the existing controller, this controller provides a reduction of between 30% and 50% in average delays, queues and number of stops in all four intersections. Moreover, the fuel consumption and total travel time through the four intersections are reduced by about 20%.

Upgrades to the Storebæltsbroen’s road tolling facilities will treble capacity, removing the need for travellers to stop and pay, and reducing congestion and pollution. Norwegian company Q-Free is providing the state-of-the-art video and supporting technologies which will make it all happen.

Aalborg Municipality has, as the first in Denmark, submitted an official application to the national Road Directorate for the use of driverless busses. The driverless busses are intended to increase mobility with self-driving technology on a pathway in Aalborg East, allowing more people to get around in an easy, safe and sustainable manner. The project is supported by both the local community and by the business network, and has many stakeholders.

Communication between vehicles and infrastructure is a critical next step for improving road safety. This interaction is often referred to as Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS). Although the technology is ready today, EU adoption of C-ITS is slow, as neither consumers, nor carmakers have a large incentive to invest.

In a Smart City relying on data-driven decisions it is not enough to merely count traffic in the morning and afternoon peak hours, when evaluating the redesign of a troubled traffic intersection. A new method uses Computer Vision (CV) algorithms on thermographic video to track the heat silhouettes, radiated by people, bikes, and vehicles moving through the intersection. The algorithms yield georeferenced tracks which are analysed and visualised using Geographical Information Systems (GIS).

In November 2015, the City of Copenhagen kicked off six well-defined intelligent traffic solutions that are operationalized and tested in 2017 and 2018. In this paper, we look at two of the six ITS solutions: “City Traffic Management System” and “Signal ptimizations” and ask ourselves the basic question: “Have we been smart in designing and implementing these solutions?”