ATAC, Fastweb, Ericsson: here is the first 5G bus

Can anything be done to improve public mobility services, especially in complex and congested areas such as Rome? Of course, a lot can be done and it can be done immediately: word of ATAC, Fastweb and Ericsson, whose bet on 5G has been illustrated in these hours in the presence of Massimo Bugani, Chief Staff of Sindaca Raggi with responsibility for Innovation and Giovanni Alberto Campisano, Head of Staff of the Department of the City of Rome, Rome, Giancarlo di Bernardo, Sales Director of Ericsson Italia, Marco Arioli, Head of Network Engineering of Fastweb and Francesco Amendola, ICT Director of ATAC SpA.

The “Roma 5G” project is illustrated on a special website that Fastweb and Ericsson have created in collaboration with Roma Capitale and which serves as a peephole of the lock through which to look at, and imagine, the Rome to come.

The first 5G bus

The presentation is not solt anto the opportunity to present the first bus connected to 5G, but it is a real proof-of-concept of what 5G can do to improve everyone's daily life. The application of 5G and its peculiarities to a means of public transport, for example, can return advantages on several fronts, revealing a real new horizon that strongly raises the bar of innovation precisely on those fronts where a smart city can aspire to grow.

With this experimentation we have shown that the 5G is a real platform for innovation, in order to make the public transport more efficient, smart, safe and sustainable. We are very satisfied with the collaboration with Fastweb in the framework of the project #Roma5G the city of Rome. If in these years we have laid the foundations for the development of highly innovative projects which will benefit citizens and businesses, in recent months, the health emergency has made evident the importance of accelerating the process of digital transformation of the Country and of the whole sectors, including that of the local public transport. The applications that we have presented today are the proof.

Giancarlo di Bernardo, sales Director at Ericsson Italy

infrastructure

To complete the first trial has been done by developing a small local infrastructure useful to give the necessary coverage on the full path of the bus:

For the development of new digital services has been carried out by Fastweb and Ericsson an integrated platform that uses the frequencies 5G to 26Ghz provided by Fastweb and is composed of two cells, located on a palazzo in Via Prati fiscali, able to cover the entire route taken by the buses within the scope of the trial. The two antennas, connected to the transport network, the fiber optic Fastweb, shall transmit to the platform IoT Ericsson that collects real-time data and video images from the bus. The terminal that receives the signal 5G is installed directly on the bus, and connected to a router that has allowed us to aggregate the various network components for the realization of different use cases.

security

The first new is security related. The bandwidth enabled by 5G, and its focus on mobility allow you to best support a video surveillance platform for the monitoring of what happens on board. A small step for the single bus, but a fundamental step for urban mobility, since it transforms the vehicles in places unattended, instead of the free zones, as too often has been in the past.

The experimentation 5G has shown that the technology is able to make safer and more efficient our means. Not only are we able to identify automatically and in real time the critical situations inside the bus, but we are also capable of detecting in advance malfunctions. This allows us to intervene before they become operational problems, with obvious benefits for our customers.

Francesco Amendola, Director of ICT of the Atac S.p.A.



The images will be available direct at the control center, ATAC and can be used to monitor “live” any inconvenience that may happen.

Such a use scenario may also be employed to detect the data on the flow of passengers in the vehicle, but also to counter the so-called free-riding and evasion. In addition, the cabin of the driver is equipped with a button for emergencies connected in the cloud, which, when triggered, launches an alarm to the control centre, reporting the GPS position of the vehicle.

Telemetry

A bus connected to a bus that is monitored: is the car itself to be able to provide your own parameters and it will be a remote server that can implement and verify for the purpose of diagnosis on the state of health of the vehicle and for the purpose of making repairs in optics predictive. All of this represents an important investment because you have the means, always with the maximum efficiency, to the benefit of both the safety of visitors, because of the integrity of the fleet of vehicles in use.

The service on-board diagnostics will be useful for a variety of data, the availability of which opens up a whole new in the knowledge of the public service by the minute:

the sensors of The system are also able to detect and report in real-time the overcoming of a series of parameters, including the pressure and the direction of the motor, the speed and the actual power consumption, or temperature and humidity level inside the bus.

Smart mobility

A means connected is not only an entity traveling on the roads, but it is also an intelligent entity that may be integrated within an intelligent network. This means that, in the future, public transportation will be handled at the table, anticipating routes, schedules, priority traffic lights, and so on. Within an intelligent system, in fact, the possibility of having a flow of continuous data and a system to keep all the elements in a continuous dialogue allows you to multiply the overall efficiency of the integrated system.

The app created by Ericsson and @FASTWEB shows the estimated time of the arrival of the bus according to the actual conditions of traffic, the number of people on board, the number of free parking spaces, and allows you to purchase tickets or subscribe to commercial offers #Roma5G #mobilitàpubblica pic.twitter.com/FWgrpAIyg6

— Ericsson Italy (@EricssonItalia) July 23, 2020



smart traffic Lights, intelligent roads, ticket smart and intelligent vehicles are the future of the city, the elements on which you will be able to invest in a targeted way, because this is no longer a chimera. The first bus 5G, in fact, is born and is under the eyes of the romans.