Traffic Innovation Centre
The Traffic Innovation Centre (Innovatiecentrale) is an innovative test facility for Smart Mobility experiments at the Automotive Campus in Helmond. In this centre, companies, knowledge institutes and road authorities work together to test intelligent mobility solutions. This takes place in a real-life environment: on a public road, in an actual network, in live traffic. We can use the facilities of the Rijkswaterstaat traffic control centre for the southern Netherlands region. This gives us instant insight into the effect of an idea on real traffic. Together, we add a little intelligence to traffic management every time we conduct an experiment.
The Traffic Innovation Centre (Innovatiecentrale) closely collaborates with important Embassy partners. By integrating facilities of ao. MobilitymoveZ.NL urban testing area and Tass International’s A270, we are able to offer full package services and thoroughly carry out experiments.
Best Practices
‘Shockwave Traffic Jams’ is one of the projects which used the facilities of the Traffic Innovation Centre. One component of this project was an experiment in which 90 cars were added to rush-hour traffic, in order to measure the impact of the usage of mobile applications on traffic flow. The experiment was coordinated and monitored from the Traffic Innovation Centre.
In this testcase we’ve learned:
- How to set-up an experiment in the highway, as safe as possible and with the least impact on the traffic situation.
- To have a dedicated person who has the final responsibility and mandate to intervene when necessary.
- The essential components of a testscript.
- The importance of thoroughly informing anyone who participates in the experiment as well as stakeholders (traffic controllers, road authorities and emergency services).
Smart Cameras is another project which made use of the Traffic Innovation Centre facilities. In this project an algorithm was developed, able to detect vehicles and objects in the highway – an essential tool in automating processes in traffic management. In this testcase we’ve learned:
- To collaborate intensively with the Technical Department in order to build, buy and implement reusable and expandable hardware.
- To conduct a ‘comparison test’: compare the old situation (in this case: opening a rush hour lane manually) with the new situation (opening a rush hour lane by following input from algorithm). A method which is useful in many kinds of experiments.
