The Government of Catalonia through the Secretariat for Digital Policies in the Ministry of Business and Labour, the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) and the Eurecat technology centre today presented the results of a proof of concept for an artificial intelligence (AI) tool which analyses and forecasts demand for the Aerobús and matches the fleet of vehicles required at any given time with a view to planning and improving Barcelona’s metropolitan public transport systems.
AIDA is a Centre of Innovation for Data Tech and Artificial Intelligence (CIDAI) impact project undertaken as part of the Catalan Government’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy. It is a solution designed to help step up operational efficiency based on demand for the Aerobús service by tapping innovative AI and data-based solutions.
The AIDA project involved the AMB, as the sponsor of the challenge, metropolitan mobility planner and owner of the Aerobús and Bus Metropolità services, and the Eurecat technology centre, which developed the innovative solution. The presentation ceremony featured speeches by Joan Maria Bigas, Director of Mobility, Transport and Sustainability at AMB; Arnau Serra, Coordinator of Artificial Intelligence Strategy in the Government of Catalonia, and Joan Mas, Director of CIDAI and Scientific Director of Eurecat’s Digital Area.
The Secretariat for Digital Policies pointed out that projects such as AIDA help foster the development and uptake of AI innovation because they demonstrate this technology’s value in solving real-world challenges, not only validating innovative solutions but also transferring this advanced AI knowledge to the ecosystem.
Joan Mas, director of CIDAI, shared this view, commenting that the AIDA project “is an example of the impact of the public-private partnership fostered by CIDAI to drive the use of data- and AI-based technologies by businesses and society, in this case by fostering more sustainable and efficient mobility drawing on smart solutions for public transport management.”
Meanwhile, Joan Maria Bigas argued that “AI is a reality that is already transforming the way we work in public services, and specifically in planning metropolitan mobility. There are three major benefits for the public: enhanced information, improved procedure management and better public service delivery. These two projects we are showcasing today, AIDA and AI4BUS, demonstrate the opportunities AI brings to bus fleet management, enabling us to continue enhancing our bus services such as the Aerobús and the Bus Metropolità in the future. As volumes of data, procedures and interactions with the public grow and all transport systems become increasingly intermodal, we need to furnish a more flexible, personalised and efficient response. AI should not be an invisible layer which dehumanises public management. Quite the reverse: it has to be a tool for collective empowerment, a technology which makes it easier to understand the administration, access it and interact with it,”
The project has developed a model which blends short- and medium-term demand forecasting with an optimisation model to estimate the vehicle fleet needed to meet this demand at any given time while adhering to the scheduled frequency of the Aerobús, which connects the centre of Barcelona with the two terminals at Josep Tarradellas Barcelona–El Prat Airport and operates 24/7.
Artificial intelligence to optimise the AMB’s Bus Metropolità network
The partnership between AMB and Eurecat through CIDAI has led to a new project to scale up the solution and roll it out across the AMB’s Bus Metropolità routes to predict passenger demand, streamline bus frequencies and minimise waiting times. The goal is to deliver more flexible, sustainable and efficient service by matching supply to demand in real time.
The project, called AI4BUS, seeks to transform the public transport management model through data analysis and developing artificial intelligence models to build state-of-the-art predictive models for predicting bus occupancy and optimising bus frequencies to improve operational efficiency.
AI4BUS is the follow-on to the AIDA project, but in this case the artificial intelligence solutions will be deployed on scheduled public transport routes. These projects also include using contextual data such as weather, city events and socio-economic variables plus implementing a demonstrator with real-world data to validate the results in an operational environment.
