autoregion international - Ausgabe 1/2021

12 Towards the next generation of public transport systems By Francesco Viti, Associate Professor, MobiLab Transport Research Group Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine UNIVERSITÉ DU LUXEMBOURG The mobility sector is facing an unprecedented revolution thanks to the giant leaps enabled by digitalization, which opens new opportunities for new technologies and emerging services, and thanks to the growing attention to the travellers’ service quality (efficiency, affordability, comfort, reliability, etc.) as well as to societal goals such as public safety, health and sustainability. The public transport sector is at the forefront of this revolution, since it is widely regarded as the main weapon against car dependence. In Luxembourg and the Greater Region, in- vestments in next generation public trans- port systems have been a primary mission during the last decade, with initiatives that were initially conceived via the comprehen- sive policy document MoDu released in 2012, and later updated in 2018, and translated into action through important projects such as the tram line connecting the Central Station to the Kirchberg business district and the Findel Airport, the multimodal exchange at the Pont Rouge, the expansion of the bicycle network, the installation of a large number of electrical charging points, etc. The second half of the ’10s has turned the attention from infrastructural investments to efforts aiming at making the best use of the available infrastructure capacity. New initiatives aimed at favouring the acquisi- tion of vehicles relying on less polluting en- gines or cleaner energies (electric, hydrogen), new traffic management solutions such as dynamic information panels and ramp me- tering controls on the motorways, high oc- cupancy lanes, advanced decision support tools for both the travellers (multimodal trip planners, digital payment options, real time information panels at stops,…) and the service providers (advanced monitoring and control systems, assistance systems for the bus drivers, etc.). New planning and man- agement solutions, relying on the oppor- tunities offered by emerging technologies, large and rich amount of data and computing power, are now feasible and are ready to be deployed. The eCoBus Project Motivated by the above initiatives and trends, the University of Luxembourg (UniLu) and the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Images: © UNIVERSITÉ DU LUXEMBOURG S H A R E