Smart Region Mobility Framework

Abstract

A smart city describes an urban setting which aims to effectively apply ICT technologies to help improve the well-being of its citizens and reduce the negative impacts of urbanization. The priority areas considered in the Global Smart City Index (SCI) by the Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) World Competitiveness Centre were key infrastructures and technologies in (1) health and safety, (2) mobility, (3) activities (e.g., recreational spaces), (4) opportunities (work and school), and (5) governance. A smart region is a term used to extend the concept of a smart city into both urban and rural settings to promote a sustainable planning approach at the regional level. A direction that must be considered is the adoption of a “Smart Region Mobility Framework” to effectively transform our urban and rural regional transportation networks. This research study focused on the development of the smart region mobility framework for an island region group in the Philippines. The smart region goal is to integrate intelligent transportation system (ITS) platforms such as advanced public transportation system (APTS), advanced traveler information system (ATIS), and advanced rural transportation system (ARTS) to the local public transportation route plans (LPTRP) of the region. The activities include the data collection, analysis, and evaluation of multimodal regional transportation networks and social services infrastructure. The transportation network modeling process follows the four-step transportation planning process of trip generation, trip distribution, modal-split analysis, and trip assignment. Based on the analysis of 6 provinces, 16 cities, and 114 municipalities included in the study, there are two cities identified as smart city candidates. One of the smart city candidates is designated as the smart city regional center. In the context of a smart region, the available social services (e.g., employment opportunities, education, and health services) in the designated smart cities can also be made accessible to connected cities/municipalities through ease of transportation and mobility services in the region. Lastly, the study presented the implementation of data flow architecture of the smart region mobility framework, and the regional traveler information system using mobile and web application services.