Italian with a few seminars held by foreign experts in English
Course Content
The course deals with innovative transport systems, enabled by recent technological developments; presents the technologies and introduces the transportation systems
It teaches to:
schedule them,
evaluate them
and manage them
Possible uses of each new transport system are presented and their positive and negative impacts are assessed.
The necessary policies to allow the take up of such new systems are evaluated.
Knowledge and understanding
The course develops skills on the planning and management of transport systems that allow employment in companies and institutions that plan and manage mobility. Students acquire knowledge of all aspects of the operation of a transport system with particular regard to the specific features enabled by recent technological innovations.
Applying knowledge and understanding.
The course has a practical approach and the balance between the theoretical lectures and the exercises, that allow students to apply the knowledge gained in this and previous courses, is unbalanced in favor of the application phase. Students are required to use different transport planning software at different levels of analysis to evaluate the costs and benefits of many different innovative transport systems on the same practical case given at the beginning of the course.
Making judgements
The student will have gained the ability not only to solve complex technical problems but also and above all the independence of judgment in order to evaluate the applicability of many technological solutions in any practical and operational situation.
Communication skills
The course teaches the student to manage the latest software for transport planning and to apply them in different conditions even outside their natural boundaries Students learn communication skills to present the results and to evaluate the effectiveness of the support.
Learning skills
Students deepen planning and management of transport systems (with particular regard to the most innovative components) and acquire the skills that will allow them to deepen their analysis of unexplored situations once at work. They learn how to devise new and improved solutions, always including the latest technological discoveries.
Prerequisites
Although attendance is not mandatory, it is warmly recommended because of the course practical approach.
Basic knowledge of transport techniques and economics is necessary
Teaching Methods
The course has a theoretical part with lectures on the most innovative transport systems, their characteristics, their fields of applicability and also their limits.
However, it is the practical part that has priority.
From the beginning of the course, each student is given a practical case, of which input data are available or can be easily found, and on this practical case all the technological solutions presented in the theoretical lessons are designed and evaluated. Students are therefore forced to learn by doing in a much practical approach.
Further information
Students will be received during and after the course completion for explanations and to review proposals and reports only upon appointment to be agreed through e-mail exchange
Type of Assessment
The final exam is a long practical exercise. Students are given the opportunity to do this exercise as the final lesson of the course; for those who prefer to take the exam after the end of the course, a shorter exercise will be complemented by oral questions.
Students not attending, who do not have the opportunity to carry out the practical exercises during the course, will have the opportunity to carry them out at home and present the results at the exam.
Course program
Smartphone and infomobility
• The ability to locate
- vehicles,
- people and goods
• The ability to communicate
- V2I (vehicle-infrastructure)
- V2V (vehicle-vehicle)
- V2X (vehicle-other ... pedestrians, cyclists, ...)
- IoT (Internet of Things)
• Transport services enabled by ICT (Information and Communication Technologies)
- Car sharing
- Ride sharing
- The collective taxi (transport on call)
- Combinations of services
• Plan and manage these transportation services
• The infrastructural and socio-economic implications
Innovative traction systems and environmental impacts
• Energy technologies
- Bio Fuels
- Hydrogen
- Batteries
- Hybrid traction
• Vehicles and transport services enabled by energy technologies
• Organizational, social and infrastructural impacts
The completely new transport systems
The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
- definitions,
- possible uses,
- sizing and design
• Personal Rapid Transit (PRT)
- definitions,
- possible uses,
- sizing and design
• The magnetic levitation train
- definitions,
- possible uses,
- sizing and design
• The Hyperloop
- definitions,
- possible uses,
- sizing and design
• The infrastructural and socio-economic implications
The automation of road vehicles
• Positioning and routing technologies
- RTK / GPS differential,
- SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping)
- Odometer and magnets
- Magnetic loop
• Obstacle detection technology
- The laser scanners
- Radars
- The cameras
- Fusion of information and classification
• Make decisions about how to behave (plan ahead vs. autonomy and artificial intelligence
- Prepare infrastructure for "safe" automation
- Artificial intelligence and autonomy
• Two approaches to automation
- SAE driving / automation levels
- Complete automation immediately in simplified environments
New transport services enabled by the automation of road vehicles
• Car-sharing with automatic relocation of empty vehicles
- definitions,
- possible uses,
- sizing and design
• Modular buses that blur and recombine
- definitions,
- possible uses,
- sizing and design
• The automatic taxi
- definitions,
- possible uses,
- sizing and design
• The automatic private car
- definitions,
- possible uses,
- sizing and design