Ca’ Foscari and green smart traffic management

How to think an ecological approach to traffic management? This is the goal of the Ecomobility project that is coordinated by the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics under the supervision of Andrea Gambaro professor of analytical chemistry, with the support of such partners as the Veneto Region, the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (Isac-Cnr) and the University and the municipality of Rijeka.

Ecomobility (ECOlogical supporting for traffic Management in cOastal areas By using an InteLlIgenT sYstem) was funded by the Interreg Italy-Croatia program with 830 thousand Euros. This extension of a previous European project (Poseidon) will last 18 months.

“Particulates have become one of the world’s worst air pollutants in urban areas and have killed more people than road accidents - the researchers explained. The car industry has been working on how to make urban traffic greener, but changes in behavior could be adopted right now to reduce this negative impact”.

Ecomobility aims at building a support system for traffic management which will take into account the levels of pollutants in different parts of the city to reduce hazardous pollution peaks exceeding legal limits.

Salvatore Orlando, professor of computer science said: “The system we are creating will elaborate real-time pollution data as maps that will be accessible to traffic managers. The general public will be involved with an app for smartphones featuring the “greenest” route to reach a destination”.

The system and app will be tested in the mainland between Venice and Rijeka to evaluate their efficiency in real environment.

The project also includes an advanced scientific research on the evaluation of the effect of maritime traffic on fine particulate matter and nanoparticles. Previous research on port cities showed that port related pollution has a strong impact on the concentration of the smallest particles which mostly threaten our respiratory system. “This is why it is a critical point that should be addressed” Gambaro concluded.