People
prof. Ing. Ondřej Přibyl, Ph.D.

2025, Transportation, 52 (3), p. 1191-1219), ISSN 0049-4488

There is a raise in public awareness on environmental and health issues in recent years, therefore many municipalities changed their transport policy direction to become more sustainable, especially active mobility based. This study makes use of an activity-based demand model to simulate urban mobility and policies for sustainable transport modes in the Usti nad Labem district using an agent-based model simulator driven by a co-evolutionary algorithm. Two policy scenarios were created by considering the transport literature and analyzing the characteristics and behaviors of citizens as well as the properties of the study area. Three scenarios—the actual situation, a cycleway-infrastructure case, and a bus priority case—were simulated for the study area with MATSim software. Both policy scenarios resulted in a decrease in car usage, with a higher drop seen in the cycleway-infrastructure scenario. 9.11% higher public transport ridership and 2.45% more of public transport modal share are observed in the bus priority compared to the actual situation, however the car-related emissions did not decrease. 6.36% more of cycling modal share was also noticed in the cycleway-infrastructure scenario which, the transport modal shift is enhanced by 2.6 more times than in the bus priority scenario. Car driving hours were significantly reduced in the cycleway scenario (5535 h less in a day) where 445.3 tons of car-related CO2 emissions would be saved annually, therefore environmental benefits of cycling modal share increase in the study area is undoubtable in long-term.

2024, ETC Conference Papers 2024, Association for European Transport), ISSN 2313-1853

Understanding travel demand patterns is crucial for effective traffic management, policy-making, and transportation evaluations. Digital twins have emerged as a significant tool in tackling this challenge, where accurate traffic simulation outcomes depend on high-quality data. Essential to most transportation analysis is the knowledge of road users’ origin and destination (OD), enabling route planning, traffic pattern assessment, and system optimization. This information is typically represented in an Origin-Destination (OD) matrix. However, direct observation of every traveler’s origins and destinations is impractical, necessitating the estimation of time-dependent OD flows from available data — a persistent challenge in the field. Direct methods like measurements, interviews, or surveys are often too costly and challenging to implement. Instead, aggregation methods using traffic counts and other data sources offer reasonable estimates. This paper reviews several approaches for estimating OD matrices for vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians. This review considers various data sources, methodologies, and preprocessing techniques tailored to each mode of transportation. Subsequently, we propose an integrated framework for OD estimation across these modes, factoring in the unique travel demand influencers and available data for each. We acknowledge practical constraints and provide a meaningful contribution to demand modeling that serves as a baseline for digital twins

2024, Transportation, ISSN 1572-9435

In this study, we conducted a comprehensive survey involving a substantial sample size (n = 6,405) of urban daily commuters across four European nations (Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, and the Czech Republic). Our investigation contributes to an enriched comprehension of the user dynamics associated with Mobility-as-a-Service alternatives and their interrelation with public transit modalities in the context of travel preferences. Specifically, we researched the responsiveness of participants to variations in pricing and travel durations. Additionally, we examine the tendencies of various participant categories, stratified into distinct segments based on shared attributes, toward the adoption of public transportation, MaaS solutions, or private vehicular transport. Our findings highlight the essential role fundamental mobility determinants, such as price and travel time, play in influencing the likelihood of opting for a specific transportation modality. This phenomenon was particularly discernible within the "Unspecified Users" group, which gives us options to alter their behavior. The analytical framework used in our study that combined several mathematical modeling tools provided insight into the choices people make when choosing between different travel options, and our findings may be used by decision makers to create better and more informed approaches to promote sustainable alternatives to the use of cars in urban settings.

2024, 2024 Smart City Symposium Prague - IEEE PROCEEDINGS, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 979-8-3503-6096-7, ISSN 2831-5618

This study investigates the effect of meteorological conditions on the traffic flow and its speed in Prague, with a focus on variations in temperature and precipitation. Using data from strategic traffic detectors operated by the municipality of Prague and sensors from the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, it explores the correlations between weather fluctuations and traffic flow parameters. The findings reveal an influence of weather on traffic flow behavior, revealing that extremes in temperature and precipitation significantly affect both traffic flow and speed. This research contributes to a deeper comprehension of the mobility of humans and goods (city logistics) within urban settings. Importantly, it underscores the necessity of integrating meteorological data into transport management and planning, particularly in the context of ongoing climate changes.

2024, Heliyon, 10 (13), ISSN 2405-8440

This review aims to explore earthquake-based transport strategies in seismic areas, providing state-of-the-art insights into the components necessary to guide urban planners and policymakers in their decision-making processes.

2024, Neural Network World, 34 (4), p. 219-241), ISSN 2336-4335

Understanding individual travel behavior is crucial for developing effective travel demand management strategies and informed transportation policies. This study investigates the factors influencing individuals’ mode choices by analyzing data from a comprehensive travel survey. We employ a deep neural network model to explore the relationships between survey variables and respondents’ transportation mode preferences, focusing on both observable and latent factors. The SHAP method is applied to interpret the model’s outputs, providing global and local explanations that offer detailed insights into the contribution of each variable to mode choice decisions. By identifying the key determinants of mode selection and uncovering the complex interactions between these factors, this research provides valuable insights for designing targeted policies that can better address transportation needs and influence sustainable travel behavior.

2023, 2023 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 979-8-3503-2162-3, ISSN 2691-3666

In most cities, we face an excessive number of cars, leading to congestion, lost time, increase in produced emissions, or decreased safety. Many policies are thus aiming at shifting the travel mode of conducted trips to more sustainable ones, typically public transport. Lately, bike-sharing offers a sustainable way of transport. It is most suitable to support the last mile of a trip and thus is relevant mostly to connect high-capacity public transport stops to the final destination. However, especially in downtown areas, it has the potential to replace trips by public transport. To understand whether these two travel modes compete or complement each other, a spatial analysis was conducted on origin-destination data of bike-sharing use, which start or end at a major public transport stop. Rides in different weather conditions during weekday afternoon peak hours and Saturday afternoon was considered to reveal correspondence among daily commuting and leisure trips. More than 6000 bike rentals were analyzed. Special focus was dedicated to the use of bike-sharing along frequent, high-capacity public transport lines. The analysis proved that bike-sharing has a mainly competitive role in downtown areas, as roughly half of the trips were conducted between public transport stops. The results of this study can be used by decision-makers to improve public transport and bike-sharing service or bike infrastructure, as well as by operators to optimize the reallocation of bike-sharing vehicles.

2023, 2023 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 979-8-3503-2162-3, ISSN 2691-3666

Traffic congestion is one of the most significant impacts of constantly increasing mobility demands in cities. In this paper, we conceptualize a complex multi-aspect algorithm for quantification of the socioeconomical impact of congestion. This algorithm can be a very powerful tool to evaluate recurrent congestion in cities in terms of quality of life (QoL) and economic assessment justifying investments. It is also a forecasting tool evaluating planned interventions into urban transportation systems such as constructions, reorganizations, and various special events. The proposed preliminary algorithm takes into consideration the value of time, the fuel consumed, and the cost of produced CO2 emissions. With the provided example, it was shown that in case of Prague city daily congestion related cost can exceed and overwhelming 800.000 EUR/day. This is a considerable amount when considering its daily base repetitiveness.

2023, ISBN 978-80-01-07090-1

This work summarizes results and findings of a Czech national scientific project “SMART City – SMART Region – SMART Community” that took place between years 2018 and 2022. Its objective was to understand decision making processes related to the travel mode choice (travel behavior research). Particular focus has been put on shared mobility, micro mobility and mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) in general. Main driver of the study was the need to understand reasons why people choose cars as their preferred travel mode in order to propose and deliver policies leading to increase attractiveness of other transport modes.

2023, International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology, 12 (4), p. 986-995), ISSN 2046-0430

With the constant and ever-growing pressure from governing bodies for increased sustainability of transportation systems, the need for changes in the travel behaviours of the inhabitants of suburban and urban areas seems inevitable. Thus a shift from cars to vehicles with higher occupancy rates or other more environmental friendly travel modes needs to be a priority. This requires understanding the reasons why people choose cars as their preferred mode of travel for commutes in order to make informed decisions about how to encourage changes in commuter travel behaviors. This paper presents a case study of four medium-sized Czech towns, including a survey concerning pre- and post-COVID-19 travel habits focused on identifying and understanding the willingness of car-dependent commuters to change their mode of travel choice. This three-stage survey revealed a small, COVID pandemia -based effect on the habits of respondents and helped to identify sensitivities survey participants had to particular travel parameters and characteristics that might be used by municipalities to implement informed policies that could lead to changes in travel behaviours.

2023, 2023 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 979-8-3503-2162-3, ISSN 2691-3666

Wastewater treatment is a process to improve the water quality making it suitable for discharge back to the environment. Since wastewater majorly comes from humans, wastewater treatment plants are required in urban areas to improve the quality of the environment and life in cities. In Ecuador, wastewater treatment is frequently solved by a waste stabilization pond system which offer completely natural purifying processes. Unfortunately, most of the ponds are not in optimal conditions and show deficiencies in hydrodynamics and sediment removal. The objective of this work was to demonstrate how a hydraulic improvement of a maturation pond can be achieved by applying Computational Fluid Dynamics. Ansys Fluent software was used to perform a two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulation of the maturation pond in the Playas canton. Several interventions in the pond design were proposed and studied from the hydraulic efficiency point of view. It was generally concluded that the use of the Computational Fluid Dynamics is beneficial to design, analyze and optimize complex waste stabilization pond systems, resulting in an increased quality of life in cities.

2022, Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems, 26 (5), p. 613-623), ISSN 1547-2450

In a world in which Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are increasingly being installed on highways, the proper calibration of ITS algorithms is emerging as an essential component of such systems. The key to calibration is profound and correct understanding of reactions by drivers to ITS interventions. Speed compliance is a special kind of driver behavior, highly related to resultant road safety. This paper, using data gathered from a representative sample of 39 research participants in a dynamic driving simulator experiment in the Czech Republic, presents an approach for modeling driver speed compliance based on socio-demographic characteristics. In this approach, logistic regression model was applied to understand the factors influencing driver speed compliance. The results of this study support the goal of establishing optimal speed limits for drivers on Variable Message Signs on the Prague Ring Road by addressing issues related to driver speed compliance. These findings provide the basis for policy development aimed at ensuring the consistent and practical design of Variable Speed Limit systems on Czech highways and beyond.

2022, Applied Sciences, 12 (19), ISSN 2076-3417

In this study, an activity-based travel demand model of the Ústí nad Labem district (Czech Republic) is created. To do this, an advanced travel demand synthesis process is presented by utilizing the Eqasim framework, which is a pipeline-processing, initial raw data to simulation step. The framework is extensively modified and extended with several algorithms in order to utilize multiple data points for increasing realism in mobility for travel demand models. Two major extensions are provided. First, the pipeline framework is improved to estimate inbound and outbound trips of the study area, comprising a main city and 23 surrounding municipalities. The extended framework assigns synthetic gates for the study area as hubs for the inclusion of inbound and outbound trips. Second, the pipeline framework is advanced to provide a more compatible match of travel destination and activity location state. To do this, the extended framework assigns a capacity for each facility identified for the study area, the expected number of visitors to each facility, and the number of residents in each building. The resulting demand model is presented and the generated trips are evaluated based on locational, transport mode, and sociodemographic characteristics with origin–destination (OD) bundling. Additionally, distribution analyses of the present model are conducted to understand the matching results on a detailed level. The results demonstrate that the present model provides a reasonable output for transport researchers when testing different mobility scenarios and the provided extensions helps them to reduce implausible reflections of the distribution of travel and activity characteristics in household travel surveys while creating demand models, thus increasing realism. Lastly, open-source playground and code repository for further future improvement of synthetic travel synthesis methods are created, which enhances a deep understanding of the preparatory and methodological backgrounds required for complex activity-based simulations in order to inspire transport planners.

2022, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING, 35 (5), p. 900-907), ISSN 1025-2495

Road construction and maintenance activities cause traffic congestions and delays and present challenges for ensuring the safety of both motorists and road workers. While urban areas are well-equipped with traffic devices, in the case of highways our chances to collect traffic data and control traffic flows may be limited. Then the use of a temporary Highway Traffic Management System seems to be a suitable solution. Although the impacts of its deployment are addressed by many theoretical studies and demonstrated on traffic simulation models, there are not many references dealing with field tests. We provide results of the practical evaluation of the temporary Highway Management System installed and tested on the main highway in the Czech Republic during the road works period. Before-after analysis of collected traffic data was performed to prove the importance and positive impact of the proposed solution. We demonstrate an over 20% increase in the capacity of the roadwork zone and an almost 30 seconds decrease in average delay for one vehicle Highway administrators can use the results to justify investments into the temporary deployment of mobile traffic management systems.

2022, Applied Sciences, 12 (7), ISSN 2076-3417

Urban areas are growing all over the world. As a consequence, a larger volume of people and goods has to move to a larger number of different locations on a daily basis. This leads to more traffic congestion, longer commutes, use of different travel modalities, and increasing pollution. There is thus a need for more intelligent transportation and smart infrastructure, as well as changes in travel behavior.

2022, ISBN 978-3-0365-4147-1

Smart Cities seek to optimize their systems by increasing integration through approaches such as increased interoperability, seamless system integration, and automation. Thus, they have the potential to deliver substantial efficiency gains and eliminate redundancy. To add to the complexity of the problem, the integration of systems for efficiency gains may compromise the resilience of an urban system. This all needs to be taken into consideration when thinking about Smart Cities. The transportation field must also apply the principles and concepts mentioned above. This cannot be understood without considering its links and effects on other components of an urban system. New technologies allow for new means of travel to be built, and new business models allow for the existing ones to be utilized. This Special Issue puts together papers with different focuses, but all of them tackle the topic of smart mobility.

2022, 2022 Smart City Symposium Prague (SCSP), Vienna, IEEE Industrial Electronic Society), ISBN 978-1-6654-7923-3, ISSN 2691-3666

The paper presents a new data model linking the key terms within the mobility filed to show the flexible multidimensional relations among them, reflecting new trends and needs and following the service-oriented approach. Moreover, it provides a summary of the state-of-the-art assessment of mobility analysis for selected mobility services.

2022, Travel Behaviour and Society, 2022 (27), p. 204-215), ISSN 2214-367X

Urban mobility is currently facing a variety of challenges. Increasing emission levels in cities, growing numbers of private vehicles and constantly changing needs and requirements of the population are only some of them. New mobility concepts and business models are currently emerging in response to these volatile conditions, primarily through improvements in IT infrastructure and the profitable collaboration of various players. Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is one of those innovative mobility concepts trying to cope with the current challenges. This paper provides first insights on the characteristics and attitudes of potential MaaS users in order to understand the drivers for a higher willingness to use. The results are gathered with an online survey based on a sample of n = 6000 regular commuters within England, Germany, Czech Republic and Poland. Additionally to the development of a User Behavior Model, the focus also lies on the analysis of undecided users. Comparing the attitudes of participants who show a high willingness to use MaaS with those who are still undecided provides important insights on how to attract a specific audience and increase the usage of Mobility as a Service. The data provides information that the average undecided user is of higher age and has a lower income. Furthermore, the results show significant evidence that the personal opinion towards shared economy, environmental friendliness, and social influence does impact the willingness to use MaaS. Contrary to existing research, travelled distance does not influence the likelihood to use MaaS.

2021, 19th European Transport Congress: European Green Deal Challenges and Solutions for Mobility and Logistics in Cities, Maribor, University of Maribor), p. 401-417), ISBN 978-961-95633-0-4

In the last years, with new topics such as smart cities emerging, there is a lot of progress with respect to gathering new data, transforming them into information and knowledge and to share and enhance such knowledge among different fields. This is true also for traditionally closed environments such as railway stations. We can see many new sensors emerging. They do not monitor only the movement of the trains. A lot of attention is newly paid to the movement of people. For this different video detection systems, ultrasonic technologies, even weight sensors installed in vehicles are often used to learn more about travelers’ behavior. Such data can be used for many different aspects, such as safety, security or even control and optimization. In this paper, we do not look primarily at the different technologies used in sensors to monitor presence and movement of travelers (automated people counting – APC systems). Our aim is to define the possible usage of such data. System engineering approach is used to utilize the findings from literature and project review. Based on a state-of-the-art analysis, we identify the major actors and prepare use cases defining the way how they can use and benefit from the data. A classification of the technology is provided to better explain the needs of particular use cases. The use cases are also further classified according to strategic, tactical, and operational control level.

2021, Case Studies on Transport Policy, 9 (2), p. 842-850), ISSN 2213-624X

Carsharing is a relatively new and growing mobility service in many cities. Although there are numerous carsharing initiatives in operation around the world, it is still not clear how they will affect overall travel behavior. Understanding the effects of carsharing when combined with other existing travel modes is an important pre-requisite for decision-makers for them to be able to positively utilise the benefits of carsharing services. Such new mobility services need to be incorporated into existing modelling tools to reliably evaluate the impact of specific measures and policies. The presented study provides an insight into one aspect of such models: the use of carsharing for various trip purposes by users with different socio-demographic characteristics and attitudes. We identify variables that should be used for computing the utility function for users with different backgrounds, perceptions, and preferences. In this study, existing users of a carsharing company operating in various Czech cities participated in a survey and their responses were paired with records of their real carsharing usage patterns. To reduce the number of variables, principal component analysis was used, mainly with attitudinal and perception questions. The principal components based on survey respondents' attitudes towards carsharing and socio-demographic and other variables were used in logistic regression to identify parameters that most significantly influence various purposes for trips. The results confirm the hypothesis that trip purposes differ significantly among carsharing users and need to be incorporated into macroscopic carsharing usage models. These findings can assist municipality representatives and transport companies in considering carsharing as a valid and sustainable travel mode in traffic models and studies.

2021, 2021 Smart Cities Symposium Prague (SCSP), New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-0-7381-3158-0

The field of smart cities and the latest problems in this area of expertise accent the need for interaction among different areas, such as transportation, energy management, education, buildings and others. New technologies and new methods allow for a fast development of each of the areas and of the city itself. At the same time, there is a need for further involvement of citizens and different stakeholders in the decision-making process within cities. In order to demonstrate the impact of a new policy (e.g., building a new shopping center) on certain city aspect (e.g., transportation), simulation models have been recognized as probably the best approach. Unfortunately, there is still no tool that would allow the stakeholders to evaluate the impact of such a policy on a city as a whole and from multiple perspectives. Dedicated simulation frameworks should be used in cooperation, one for transportation, one for energy grid management, another for its impact on the environment until all important aspects are covered. This paper describes a complex tool aiming on overcoming such complicated demands and giving the policy makers one tool to assess impact on different interconnected fields. It combines existing dedicated simulation frameworks into a complete software suite that can combine even contradictory results into one or more performance indicators. This can be used as a decision support system and help in involving citizens into the city government and planning. This article focuses on the utilization of mobility modelling in such a software.

2021, Applied Sciences, 11 (22), ISSN 2076-3417

owadays, urban road tunnels are considered to be independent entities within a city. Their interactions with the rest of the city and vice versa are usually not considered and, if they are, are only considered in a limited way (for example, through the nearest traffic controller). Typically, only the traffic parameters and not the environmental impacts are considered. This paper has two major objectives. First, we provide a systemic view on a road urban tunnel. The major focus is on the interfaces between the tunnel and the rest of the city and the way they will be managed. We are providing a tool to take into consideration a sustainable development of a tunnel (i.e., not only traffic flow parameters such as average speed, but also environmental and societal characteristics). This model expresses the actual traffic situation in a monetary form (i.e., cost of congestions). The second objective is to provide a new road urban tunnel control approach that follows the original methodology and systemic view described in the paper. If the tunnel is controlled autonomously, which corresponds to the current state-of-the-art in many cities, the algorithm decides to close it based on only local parameters. However, the proposed new algorithm takes into consideration not only the traffic situation in the tunnel (expressed by the parameter traffic density), but also the actual traffic situation within the city (expressed by its level of service (LOS)). This allows more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable oriented road urban tunnel management. The described algorithm is demonstrated on a specific example of the tunnel complex Blanka in Prague.

2021, Neural Network World, 31 (5), p. 311-328), ISSN 1210-0552

An analysis of survey data is a fundamental part of research concerning various aspects of human behavior. Such survey data are often discrete, and the size of the collected sample is regularly insufficient for the most potent modelling tools such as logistic regression, clustering, and other data mining techniques. In this paper, we take a closer look at the results of the stated preference survey analyzing how inhabitants of cities in Thailand, Poland, and Czechia understand and perceive "smartness" of a city. An international survey was conducted, where respondents were asked 15 questions. Since the most common data modelling tools failed to provide a useful insight into the relationship between variables, so-called lambda coefficient was used and its usefulness for such challenging data was verified. It uses the principle of conditional probability and proves to be truly useful even in data sets with relatively small sample size.

2021, International Journal of Information Management, 56, ISSN 0268-4012

While there are several partial solutions to model some aspects of cities (e.g. transportation or energy), there is no framework allowing modelling of a complex system such as a city. This paper aims on providing a solution that can be used by practitioners to model impact of different scenarios and smart city projects encapsulating different subsystems, such as transportation, energetics or, for example, eGovernment. The term “smart cities” is classified into Systems Theory, particularly focusing on Cyber-Physical Systems. This classification is further elaborated to define a new term, so-called Smart City Agent (SCA). The SCA is considered as the main building block for modelling smart cities. The approach within this paper however stresses the interconnection of different systems within a city. Its’ strength is in better exchange of data and among heterogeneous agents. This information management approach is the missing key in the growing market of partial smart city solutions as it will allow simulation of solutions in complex systems such as a city. The suitability of usefulness of the proposed approach is demonstrated on a use case dealing with charging of electrical vehicles. The results show that the approach is suitable for modelling of dynamic behaviour.

2020, Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 2020 (86), ISSN 1361-9209

The European Union (EU) has set rather ambitious goals for reducing emissions and improving related environmental concerns. The majority of EU effort towards reducing emissions is aimed at vehicle manufacturers, mandating development of more efficient engines in order to reduce emissions. We propose a complementary approach to help reach the EU goals. Due to the need for motorists to repeatedly stop and accelerate while driving in urban areas, overall emission rates are observed to be higher in these environments than on open motorways. As a result, management algorithms that focus on harmonising the flow of traffic in urban centres have the potential to greatly reduce urban emission rates. In this paper, we propose a set of functionalities in form of ”use cases” in order to illustrate the inefficiencies of urban traffic flow by utilising cooperation between vehicles and infrastructure. The major contribution of this paper is in addressing the potential positive impact of such measures. The results and the expected effects of the algorithms were determined using a microscopic traffic simulation model. Importantly, this approach also addresses the transition phase, when only a limited number of cooperative and automated vehicles1 (CAVs) will be introduced into traffic, resulting in a mix of automated and non-automated vehicles on the roadways. We demonstrate that introducing CAVs into traffic can lead to significant progress towards EU emissions targets, even for lower penetration levels. According to our models, full use of CAVs on roadways would lead to a CO2 emissions decrease of 10–19%.

2020, 2020 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-7281-6821-0

With ever-changing cities and growing populations it becomes progressively more difficult to assess which infrastructural changes are beneficial and which are possibly destructive long-term. It is almost impossible to find experts that understand the wide range of aspects surrounding smart cities as well as their interrelationships. Decision makers need a tool that helps them to set certain policies and evaluate their impact on key performance indicators (KPIs). This paper presents a multicriteria evaluation method based on assessing infrastructural changes in the city combining different modeling tools to gather sufficient data to assess and evaluate different alternatives. The proposed approach is demonstrated on a case study from Prague 6, Vitêzné námêsti.

2020, Journal für Mobilität und Verkehr, 2020 (11), p. 22-29), ISSN 2628-4154

Cooperative and automated vehicles (CAVs) are often considered a mean to improve quality of life in cities, the traffic flow parameters in particular. This paper provides some evidence based on microscopic traffic simulation on how the effects can really be. Important is that the particular use cases are not built in vehicles only. We focus on so called cooper-ative environment and advanced traffic control measures. This paper describes the impact of CAVs on a cooperative urban environment, resulting from a European research project - MAVEN. We clearly demonstrate that a proper integration of CAVs into city traffic management can, for example, help with respect to the environmental goals and reduce CO2 emissions by up to 12 % (a combination of GLOSA and signal optimization). On corridors with a green wave, a capacity increase of up to 34% was achieved. Already for lower penetra-tion rates (20% penetration of CAVs), there are significant improvements in traffic performance. For example, platooning leads to a decrease of CO2 emissions of 2,6% or an impact indicator by 17,7%.

2020, 2020 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-7281-6821-0

Transport creates an integral part of people's lives and significantly affects the quality of life and the environment in cities. Because of the increasing number of cars in cities, it is not sufficient to focus just on an improvement of traffic control algorithms or other intelligent transportation systems and solutions. It is necessary to significantly decrease the number of cars in cities, i.e. to decrease the demand for travel using personal vehicles. In order to do that, researchers try to understand the process of how travel choices are made and to learn about the potential of travel mode change. A lot of research exists in this field. A common approach adopted also in the presented work uses discrete choice experiments as a mean to learn about travel behavior. Scientific results indicate that differences among different countries and cultures must be taken into consideration and research methods cannot be simply adopted without understanding the local context. For such reasons, this paper demonstrates the importance of understanding the local perceptions and their impact on the experiment design. To optimize the experiment design, three focus groups took place in Ústi and Labem Region (Czech Republic) during November 2019 with the aim to analyze local specifics and attitudes of local inhabitants towards different transport regulation measures. This case study proved the importance of pretesting experiments before performing them, the usefulness of FGs when designing the experiments and an important role of local specifics.

2020

Tato disertační práce se zabývá problematikou makroskopického dopravního modelování. Cílem práce je rozšířit standardní postup výpočtu makroskopického dopravního modelu o model, který pro každou zónu dopravního modelu určuje podíl jednotlivců vlastnících předplatní jízdenku na veřejnou dopravu nebo disponujících osobním automobilem. Využívání těchto nástrojů mobility není uvažováno jako pouhý vstup do dopravního modelu, ale používání těchto nástrojů je uvažováno jako závislé na různých faktorech popsaných v této práci. Hypotézy byly ověřeny multinomiálním logitovým modelem, nested-logit modelem a smíšeným logitovým modelem. Disertační práce představuje nový postup, který zahrnuje tyto faktory do makroskopického dopravního modelu.

2020, Research and the Future of Telematics, Basel, Springer Nature Switzerland AG), p. 152-164), ISBN 978-3-030-59269-1, ISSN 1865-0929

Smart city has several definitions. Typically, it is an alliance of subsystems that have following objectives: improvement of quality of life of citizens, better use of limited resources and best use of existing infrastructure. Transportation as one of the most important subsystems shall be thus understood as one player working together with energy management, economy, eGovernment, and others. Synergy is the key to successful implementation. In order to be able to aim at the joint objective function and any synergy, the different subsystems must “understand” each other. Ontology has been acknowledged to be the most common tool to do that. To prepare an ontology for a domain (for example transportation) is a complicated task. In order to do that in a city, where there are several subsystems with complex behaviour is even more challenging. It is very difficult if not impossible to get experts from different fields to prepare a common ontology. In this paper we address the issue of Smart City Design and propose a pragmatic method to prepare an ontological knowledge system using the knowledge of various expert groups. A new concept, so call a knowledge matrix, is defined and used to enable cooperation of experts from different fields. We believe this can further help in implementation of any smart city projects. In order to demonstrate the approach, transportation domain is used as an example for the ontology design. The approach will be further validated within two case studies that are also introduced within this paper: Smart Evropská street in Prague and within a project Smart City – Smart Region – Smart Community, where a transport behavioristic model is being developed based on the ontology described within this paper.

2020, 2020 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-7281-6821-0

Complexity of cities has for centuries been a research question across a wide range of disciplines. Cities are live organisms evolved by interactions of various heterogeneous subsystems. They are not only dynamic but also spatially distributed. Additionally, they involve humans interacting with the physical subsystems (so called cyber-physical systems). Urban planners today face a difficult task of designing new and redesigning the current urban spaces in a way to make them more liveable and walkable (the key objectives of smart cities). Yet those responsible, the city planners or urban designers still only guess about an optimal street design. This paper provides an overview of literature and discussion of potentials of space syntax, technique developed during the last 35 years that proved itself effective in city planning procedures. Space syntax provides a set of theories and methods for analysis of spatial configurations. It allows us to link human societies and space and to describe relations between them. These methods showed immerse potential to a wide range of disciplines and their integration is crucial for the field of smart cities.

2020, 2020 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-7281-6821-0

Smart Cities become a phenomenon that is strongly linked to people and their quality of life, technologies, data, information and automation. All these will be present in future transportation that is expected to be connected and automated. While advances in vehicle automation can make cities smarter, safer, cleaner, or more energy efficient, it can also make traffic management increasingly more complicated. As a result, current traffic management tools and policies may become inefficient. Since we already experience systematic growth in Smart City technology around the world, new sets of rules and policies to protect cities and their citizens in the emerging digital and automated era must be developed and enforced. Solutions such as automated driving introduce new challenges and opportunities for climate change mitigation and improvement of traffic conditions in densely urbanized city centers. There are different approaches to integrate autonomous vehicles and their novel functionalities into the traffic management. In this paper we demonstrate such functionalities and their impact on different traffic and environmental parameters based on traffic microscopic simulation adopted to such connected functionality. The results clearly show the need to carefully and individually analyze and prioritize the impact of the CAVs functionalities for each city and each traffic situation individually, as they might have contradictory effects on traffic. The key performance indicators must be defined and the functionalities carefully integrated into the existing traffic management. This is true for the mixed traffic during the early introduction of CAVs in cities even more.

2019, Thinking cities, 2019, p. 52-56), ISSN 2054-9024

A comprehensive look at MAVEN, a3.1 billion project that was launched in September 2016 under the Horizon 2020 research and Innovation framework programme of teh EU.

2019, Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems: Towards High-Level Automated Driving, Stevenage, Herts, The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)), p. 349-368), ISBN 978-1-83953-012-8

this chapter provides a perspective on integration of connected and automate vehicles into cities. the focus is on proper integration and the effect of policies.

2019, Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, Wien, Springer), p. 203-217), ISBN 978-3-030-27877-9, ISSN 0302-9743

In the paper, the new vision of “Smart City 5.0” is presented. It is based on a previously developed model of Smart City 4.0 and implementing the concept of the complex adaptive system for balancing conflict interests of different city actors. These actors can include business, transport, energy and water supply providers, entertainment and other services and can be unified based on resource and demand model. The paper describes the general principals, functionality and the architecture of the digital multi-agent platform for creating eco-system of “Smart City 5.0”. It is designed as holonic p2p network of smart services and technological components for supporting demand-resource relations. It is shown that in proposed eco-system smart services can interact both vertically and horizontally supporting competition and cooperation behavior on the basis of specialized protocols of p2p network. In the future, each smart service is considered as an autonomous cyber-physical multi-agent system which can be decomposed on a lower level of smaller services recursively. The first prototypes of smart services and their interaction are presented, the next steps for future research work are outlined.

2019, 2019 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-7281-0497-3

A city ring road with the parameters of a highway forms a part of the infrastructure of a modern city. The introduction of automated highway management to the city ring road moves it towards a smart city. This paper presents the framework model which was created with the aim of developing an agent-based control within the highway management in the future. The model was created in the multi-method simulation tool Anylogic since it allows the testing of both traditional rule-based algorithms and agent-based control. It is universal enough, thus, it can be used to compare different approaches to highway management. In this paper, a literature review focusing on the Multi-Agent Systems and their application in traffic and transportation is performed. Based on the above mentioned review, a system architecture for agent-based traffic control is proposed and the framework model is described.

2019, 2019 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-7281-0497-3

Autonomous driving is a very important topic aiming on changing mobility in smart cities. A lot of research has been dedicated to development of vehicles without drivers and quite many tests and real world demonstrations have been reported especially in the last years. The first expectations were very optimistic. Researchers as well as general public expected high positive influence in the congestions, travel time and other mobility aspects. However, the latest research questions these purely positive expectations and suggest that autonomous driving might have positive or negative effect based on city policies in place.In order to gain a better understanding about the current expectations of general public about the impact of autonomous driving, a survey has been conducted as part of a European project MAVEN. This paper provides a short description of the survey design and then summarizes the main findings and results of this survey. The results can get us a better way to understand the feeling of citizens about autonomous vehicles and the transition to full automated cities.The results confirmed the general trends and at the same time gave us more insight into the special questions related to MAVEN use cases. These findings will be further validated in simulation experiments.

2019, 2019 IEEE International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo (ICCVE), Vienna, IEEE Industrial Electronic Society), ISBN 978-1-7281-0075-3

The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate a novel method for modeling smart cities and to introduce a use case study related to charging of electric vehicles. This use case is focusing on the research question: how many charging stations are needed to fulfill the dynamic demand for charging of electric vehicles. If electric vehicles become a mass product, it will be necessary to build many charging stations. On the other hand, the charging time will be significantly different from conventional cars and hardly as fast as conventional cars have (at least in the near future). In case of trucks, this will be even bigger difference. We can expect significant improvements in the speed of charging of batteries in the future. In this paper, we do not want to predict what will be the future, but rather demonstrate what will be the impact if we consider the number of charging stations, electric vehicles and charging time. This is a dynamic problem and the usage of a novel SMACEF framework using Multiagent systems is proposed as a suitable tool for this use case, as well as other smart city related problems.

2019, IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine, 11 (4), p. 28-36), ISSN 1939-1390

Nowadays the term Smart City is widely used and almost every city aims to become “Smart”. Unfortunately, the definitions of what Smart means differ and there is not a single accepted one. Often a technocratic view is adopted and the actual goal—make city more liveable—is not kept in mind. In this paper, a new approach to initiate and develop Smart City model is provided. A unified model is one way to describe the processes within such complex and heterogeneous system as Smart City. It is based on the similarity to the well-established framework called ITS (Intelligent Transport System) architecture. First, an overview of the Smart City initiatives and key principles that often require change of the way how we think of projects is provided. Further, the objectives and approach to national ITS architectures are described and discussed, mainly aiming on its limitations for the practical use especially in the context of Smart Cities. Finally, this paper provides a guidance on how a Smart City Architecture shall be established to overcome the system complexity and to reduce its dimension in terms of volume of required data flow. The new approach is based on decentralized intelligence, where a number of processes are carried out at the level of so-called building blocks. Multi-agent systems are proposed as a design tool for the particular building blocks.

2019, 2019 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-7281-0497-3

Travel behavior is certainly an important study area in the field of smart cities. Influencing travel behavior or changing travel patterns (for example by motivating travelers to use alternative travel modes) has the potential to lower congestions and thus significantly affect the quality of life as well as the environment – the key objectives of smart city projects and initiatives.This paper provides a review of existing research into data collection methods dealing with the topic of travel behavior, mainly with changes towards using alternative travel modes. First, a theoretical classification of survey methods is provided. Next, their advantages and limitations are demonstrated on real-world examples. Finally, the findings of this analysis are formulated into recommendations for new research into the potential of smart city measures to influence transport behavior in the Ustí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic.

2018, 2018 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-5386-5017-2

Preparing the next generation of engineers, scientists and decision makers requires the development of new teaching strategies that follow smart cities philosophy: collaborative, inclusive and focused on specific needs of the region. The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), USA and University of Guadalajara (UdeG), Mexico, addressed the challenge of creating a new international course on smart cities study abroad program that leverages the long-term relationship of UTEP with Czech Technical University (CTU), Czech Republic, and industry partners in El Paso and Guadalajara, especially IBM Mexico. This program is highly interdisciplinary, involving four departments in the College of Engineering at UTEP and the Department of Information Systems, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Economico Administrativas at UdeG. Input from city officials in Guadalajara and El Paso along with industry partners was key in designing this novel program. Thirty-two students from UTEP and 32 from UdeG have successfully completed this program which will launch again on its third edition this year. The program included problem-based learning strategies as well as cultural, industry-led activities, culminating in a Smart Cities Hackathon competition. This articles reports on the planning, development and results of this study abroad program, challenges and lessons learned.

2018, Sdělovací technika (9), p. 16-18), ISSN 0036-9942

V poslední době se téma takzvaných autonomních vozidel stává velmi populárním. Většina výrobců automobilů se věnuje rozvoji technologií podporujících kooperativní či autonomní vozidla. Pokročilá senzorika či např. matematické modely pro plánování trasy vozidel v rámci jízdních pruhů jsou témata zpracovaná poměrně detailně a spolehlivě výrobci automobilů. Zároveň se v novinách často setkáváme s informacemi o pilotních testech či autonomních vozidlech v reálném provozu. Může se tedy zdát, že existuje velká připravenost na rozvoj autonomních vozidel. Autonomní vozidla ovšem nepochybně změní i pohled na management a řízení dopravy ve městech.

2018, ISBN 978-80-7270-058-5

Publikace Města budoucnosti pojednává o účelném využití moderních technologií pro lepší správu a management měst s ohledem na jejich udržitelný rozvoj a kvalitu života obyvatel města.

2018, Structural Monitoring and Maintenance, 5 (3), p. 363-377), ISSN 2288-6605

The proper functioning of critical points on transport infrastructure is decisive for the entire network. Tunnels and bridges certainly belong to the critical points of the surface transport network, both road and rail. Risk management should be a holistic and dynamic process throughout the entire life cycle. However, the level of risk is usually determined only during the design stage mainly due to the fact that it is a time-consuming and costly process. This paper presents a simplified quantitative risk analysis method that can be used any time during the decades of a tunnel’s lifetime and can estimate the changing risks on a continuous basis and thus uncover hidden safety threats. The presented method is a decision support system for tunnel managers designed to preserve or even increase tunnel safety. The CAPITA method is a deterministic scenario-oriented risk analysis approach for assessment of mortality risks in road tunnels in case of the most dangerous situation – a fire. It is implemented through an advanced risk analysis CAPITA SW. Both, the method as well as the resulting software were developed by the authors’ team.

2018, 2018 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-5386-5017-2

Satellite technologies are widely used in many areas of modern society in general and in smart cities in particular. Improved traffic management, air quality monitoring, emergency management, geospatial distribution, management of critical energy infrastructure are examples of the tasks where using satellite technologies can give significant contribution to sustainability and safety. Proper operation of satellite systems is needed to achieve that. This requires solving a number of tasks, one of which is scheduling tracking, telemetry and command (TT&C) ground stations to carry out communication sessions with satellites. Service actions and transmitting a plan for payload operation such as Earth observation or radio broadcasting are performed during that sessions. In this paper, the authors discuss mathematical formulation of TT&C ground stations scheduling problem in order to analyse possibilities to increase the quality of schedule and efficiency of its adaptations. Possible approaches to achieve the goal, and factors influenced on parrying emergency situations are demonstrated. Approaches for monitoring the current situation and preparing data about it are proposed. Possible ways of its improvement are discussed, basic idea of decision support system to determine state of ground stations is proposed. Evaluating the efficiency of changing schedule of TT&C ground stations using proposed approaches and tools is given. The proposed approaches can help to ensure performing both planned and emergency tasks of satellite systems in order to ensure normal work of many services in smart cities.

2018

2018, 2018 Smart City Symposium Prague, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-5386-5017-2

The topic of Smart Cities is nowadays very broadly discussed. In order to be able to move beyond theory and make some practical progress, the concept of building blocks shall be adopted. In this paper, we address one particular building block - Smart Campus - and try to understand its key features. University is typically a part of most big cities and forms a unique environment. Smart city theory clearly states that improving the quality of life of particular citizens shall be the main objective. Even though a university has also different stakeholders, students form a homogenous group with often common objectives. The objective of this paper is to propose a method to learn about student preferences and perception of different smart cities with respect to university campuses. For this reason, design of a survey which can be used by different universities to learn about the expectations of the end users - students - with respect to the smart concept is presented and discussed. Additionally, results of two pilot evaluations are presented. On purpose, two universities with rather different background and different cultural background were selected: Czech Technical University in Prague (Czech Republic) and Thammasat University in Thailand. A pilot survey was executed and the analysis of the results using basic econometric methods, inferential statistics and logistic regression is provided.

2018, Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, LNICST, Basel, Springer), p. 274-283), ISBN 9783319937090, ISSN 1867-8211

Driver behaviour is a crucial factor not only with respect to trac safety but also when considering trac management systems. Modern Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), such as Variable Speed Limit (VSL) system, enable real time dynamic trac management using actual trac data. However, in order to achieve an eective system, it is crucial to provide its speed limitation decision algorithm that is based on actual driver behaviour and not on theoretical expectations. Proper understanding of the driver decision making process and driving psychology is a key to eective and resultful trac management systems of the future. In this paper authors describe their study aiming to create a driver behaviour model with respect to VSL system based on data from driving simulator experiment. The resulting model is to be further ap- plied to data of Czech drivers' population in order to create background for future microsimulations of trac and wide range of objectives connected to calibration, analysis and deployment of future VSL systems in country.

2017, 2017 Smart Cities Symposium Prague (SCSP) - IEEE PROCEEDINGS, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-5386-3825-5

Automated driving has become an important research trend in the field of cooperative intelligent transportation systems and their applications in smart cities. Automated driving both increases road capacity and eliminates human errors, one of the most common reason of traffic accidents. Both these aspects influence significantly the quality of life, which is a major goal of smart city initiatives. Management of automated vehicles by urban road infrastructure is a rather new subject and not so much practical development has been reported yet. Unfortunately, the available information is spread over fragments within other resources dealing with automated vehicles. In this paper, we provide an overview of major functionalities that have to be provided by both road infrastructure and an automated vehicle so that the vehicle can optimally navigate through an urban network with signalized intersections and we review the state-of-the-art publications providing approaches relevant to these core functionalities.

2017, Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology, 69, p. 28-36), ISSN 0886-7798

Safety is one of the most important aspects when designing a road tunnel system. Apart from the general design of a road tunnel, different technological safety systems can contribute to increased safety. There is, however, no agreed methodology on how to evaluate such systems prior to their design and installation. In this paper, it is recommended that the time required to detect a fire and warn people about it in the tunnel be used as a quality criterion since it has a direct effect on the probability of saving lives. In their previous paper, the authors proposed a fuzzy system called SAFECALC for effectively evaluating fire sensors and warning systems in tunnels, even in the early design phase. The biggest challenge in designing a fuzzy system is the original identification and calibration of such a system. For that reason, this paper focuses on the identification stage and, using the example of a linear fire sensor, it suggests a new methodology for performing such early level calibration. This methodology consists of several steps and, after the original design of the system, it uses inputs provided by experts in the field (via surveys and brainstorming) for fine tuning of the system. A physical model is used to simulate the propagation of a fire in a tunnel. The results of such the process are then evaluated on a real world case study from Lochkov tunnel near the city of Prague.

2017, DRIVE-CAR INTERACTION & SAFETY CONFERENCE, Praha, České vysoké učení technické v Praze), p. 68-73), ISBN 978-80-01-06336-1, ISSN 2336-5382

Driving is the most universal and ordinary task people perform every day and in the same time the most complex and dangerous. It requires a full range of sensory, perceptual, cognitive, and motor functions, all of which can be affected by a wide range of stressors and experience levels. Therefore exploring of human behaviour while controlling vehicle is a crucial task in improving traffic safety. Experimental studies can always be conducted with on-road tests, however using a simulator is safer and more cost effective. The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate if, and under what conditions, driving simulator provides results sufficient to provide insight to the behaviour of drivers. It discusses its limits and advantages. Overall, the researches reviewed in this paper indicates that simulator driving behaviour approximates (relative validity), but does not exactly replicate (absolute validity), on-road driving behaviour.

2017, Neural Network World, 27, p. 181-196), ISSN 1210-0552

This paper deals with the changeover from the decision tree (bivalent logic) approach to the fuzzy logic approach to highway traffic control, particularly to variable speed limit displays. The usage of existing knowledge from decision tree control is one of the most suitable methods for identification of the new fuzzy model. However, such method introduces several difficulties. These difficulties are described and possible measures are proposed. Several fuzzy logic algorithms were developed and tested by a microsimulation model. The results are presented and the finest algorithm is recommended for testing on the Prague City Ring Road in real conditions. This paper provides a guidance for researchers and practitioners dealing with similar problem formulation.

2017, 2017 Smart Cities Symposium Prague (SCSP) - IEEE PROCEEDINGS, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-5386-3825-5

The outputs of many large EU research projects that are aimed at improving life in cities and that of their residents, such as those funded under the Horizon 2020 programme, are often delivered by technology-oriented partners or research institutions that, although they are often a part of a heterogeneous consortia, may not be aware of the real-life dimension of the problem they are solving. This could be particularly troublesome in case a holistic solution should be delivered and is especially valid in case of Smart Cities related problems. In this paper we are proposing a methodology to overcome this issue while using the example of a real Horizon 2020 project MAVEN – Managing Automated Vehicles Enhances Network. The methodology is based on the system engineering approach and its application is illustrated on the first MAVEN stakeholder consultation workshop including its evaluation using the online tool Mentimeter. The proposed template can be used in other EU projects.

2017, 2017 Smart Cities Symposium Prague (SCSP) - IEEE PROCEEDINGS, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-5386-3825-5

Satellite Earth remote sensing data are widely used in Smart Cities in various areas, such as energy industry, transportation area, or disaster monitoring. Real time remote sensing data from some region could help to parry various extraordinary (emergency) situations (forest fires, floods, emergency situations on roads, etc.). It could be used in control centers to support decision making able to promptly inform citizens about current situation. In order to have the actual data, it is necessary to perform Earth observations as soon as possible after an emergency situation arises. But before the data from a satellite can be provided for its processing, a number of tasks must be solved. One of such tasks is changing a schedule of tracking, telemetry and command (TT&C) ground stations to carry out a communication session with remote sensing satellite for sending on it program of target equipment work (to observe the region and downlink sensing data to receiving ground stations). In this paper, the authors propose approaches to increase the efficiency of changing a schedule of TT&C ground station in order to increase the efficiency of getting satellite remote sensing data. Such issues as organization information exchanges between subscribers, prompt notification of planning department specialist about changing the current situation, increase efficiency of including in schedule additional communication sessions, the informative representation of data about current situation are discussed. The proposed approaches can increase the efficiency and reasonableness of the decision making in control centers to parry various extraordinary (emergency) situations. In turn, it can make cities more sustainable and safe, in other words smart.

2017, TZB-info: portál pro technická zařízení budov, 2017, ISSN 1801-4399

Tento článek popisuje základní principy Internetu věcí, podrobně se věnuje jednotlivým typům sítí pro Internet věcí v ČR a jejich výhodám a nevýhodám.

2017, 2017 Smart Cities Symposium Prague (SCSP) - IEEE PROCEEDINGS, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-5386-3825-5

Crowdsourcing is one of the most fundamental elements in so called sharing economy. This type of economy enables sharing of unused resources in the community, which is a key concept in Smart City initiatives. This paper focuses on the field of crowdsourced logistics, where many startups have emerged in the last years. Also companies, which provide other crowdsourced services, such as Uber, are often creating their logistics spin offs. However there is no well-known market leader yet. The aim of this paper is to find common key denominators of the most successful crowdsourced logistics companies. It should provide a lead to nascent companies and future research, where to pay attention. Crowdsourcing started to be studied after 2006 when the term was first used. Nowadays papers about this topic are appearing more frequently. However there has not been a clear comparison of crowdsourced logistics companies according to their revenues and raised funds. Such research can help future companies to identify the most important key features to cover.

2017, Neural Network World, 2017 (27), p. 317-331), ISSN 1210-0552

Technology has undergone rapid development in the past several decades and we are now at a point where many technologies are available to help create smart cities. Many technology companies and research institutions as well as political organizations are currently discussing this field with the highest priority. One can say that the biggest challenge to smart cities is not technologies themselves, but the merging of all available technologies into one symbiotic unit that fulfills the expected objectives. Smart cities are about connecting subsystems, sharing and evaluating data, and providing quality of life and satisfaction to citizens. We have various models of transportation systems, optimizations of energy usage, street lighting systems, building management systems, urban transport optimizations, however currently, such models are dealt with separately. In this paper, we provide an overview of the smart city concept and discuss why Multi-agent systems are the right tool for the modeling of smart cities. The biggest challenge is in connecting and linking particular subsystems within a smart city. In this paper, a modeling of a smart city building blocks is provided and demonstrated with one particular example -- a smart street lighting system. Focus will be on the decomposition of the system into subsystems as well as a description of particular modules. We propose to build models and since each individual entity can be modeled as an agent with its beliefs, desires and intentions, we suggest using Multi-agent systems as a tool for modeling systems` connections within the smart city and assessing how best to use the data from those systems.

2017, TZB info, 2017, ISSN 1801-4399

Jedním z trendů 21. století v oblasti elektronických produktů a informačních technologií je jednoznačně připojování jednotlivých zařízení do internetu a jejich vzdálené monitorování a ovládání. Taková zařízení jsou většinou označována anglickým slovíčkem smart, které do českého jazyka nejčastěji překládáme jako chytré. Do všeobecného povědomí se tak dostávají označení jako chytré město, chytrá ulice, chytrá budova, chytrá televize, chytrý termostat, chytrá lednička nebo dokonce chytrá žárovka. Odvrácenou stranou, o které se zatím příliš veřejně nemluví, je kybernetické zabezpečení těchto zařízení proti útokům hackerů z internetu.

2017, Proceedings of the 21st World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, Orlando, International Institute of Informatics and Systemics (IIIS)), p. 113-118), ISBN 978-1-941763-60-5

There are currently presented ”smart city” solutions from the biggest worldwide corporation through start-ups up to the universities. It is indisputable that some of them are for sure very interesting and beneficial for citizens and cities themselves. Nevertheless, there are too many provided solutions that make it very hard to evaluate which are really beneficial and which are not. A simple and understandable framework that would allow cities to evaluate a proposed smart city solution is currently missing. The aim of this paper is to provide an approach for evaluation of particular smart city solutions and to determine whether it is suitable and beneficial for the city. Cities are dynamic, non-linear, complex systems and the evaluation cannot be done by static and deterministic program in most cases, but dynamics and non-linearity of cities must be considered. While modeling is widely used in transportation or energy management, in the field of smart cities, no modeling approach has been used. In this paper, SMACEF (SMArt City Evaluation Framework) is proposed and its contribution is shown on a case study.

2017, 2017 Smart Cities Symposium Prague (SCSP) - IEEE PROCEEDINGS, New York, IEEE Press), ISBN 978-1-5386-3825-5

One of the basic ideas in the field of smart cities is inter-connectivity. Proposed solutions must put together solutions from different fields (sensors, transportation, economy, legislation, energy, IT and many others) and integrate them in order to serve the citizens needs and to ensure sustainability. Additionally this is not done once by buying certain technological tools, but it must be an ongoing process. Thus, not only technological view, but also social aspects must be integrated into services aiming on improvement of the quality of life and sustainability. This is in general a very difficult task, not addressed well by existing methodologies or real world projects. In this paper, we propose a solution to this problem. First, we propose an alternate way of demonstrating the expected outcome of a solution for smart cities. It aims at addressing scenarios from the perspective of the end users rather than ”just” providing an overview of technology and its capabilities as it is mainly done in the technological companies serving as a solution provider. While this is a small change, it has big effect from the customer (municipality) perspective as they can better support the effects on the end users. Second, this paper demonstrates SMACEF - SMArt City Evaluation Framework. This is a modeling tool suitable for evaluation of Smart City Initiatives. On an example of an important square (Charles Square) in Prague, the capital city of the Czech republic, certain buildings blocks, and their interconnections and the possible effects are discussed.

2017, Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, 2017 (Volume 15 - Number 3), p. 60-65), ISSN 1690-4524

There are currently presented ”smart city” solutions from the biggest worldwide corporations through start-ups up to the universities. It is indisputable that some of them are for sure very interesting and beneficial for citizens and cities themselves. Nevertheless, there are too many provided solutions that make it very hard to evaluate which are really beneficial and which are not. A simple and understandable framework that would allow cities to evaluate a proposed smart city solution is currently missing. The aim of this paper is to provide an approach for evaluation of particular smart city solutions and to determine whether it is suitable and beneficial for the city. Cities are dynamic, non-linear, complex systems and the evaluation cannot be done by a static and deterministic program in most cases, but dynamics and non-linearity of cities must be considered. While modeling is widely used in transportation or energy management, in the field of smart cities, no modeling approach has been used. In this paper, SMACEF (SMArt City Evaluation Framework) is proposed and its contributions are shown on a case study.

2017, TRANSCOM 2017, 12th International Scientific Conference Of Young Scientists On Sustainable, Modern and Safe Transport, Linz, Elsevier BV), p. 154-159), ISSN 1877-7058

The paper attempts to explain the impacts of large transport structures on the traffic quality and urban environment, in terms of the sustainability of these structures in the long term decades. Such effects can be expressed e.g. via travel time and speed, the length of congestions and time delays, number of stoppings, fuel consumption, location and amount of pollutants produced. The rating is based on the application of mathematical models working with data measured throughout the city, using strategic detectors and floating cars, or test drives. One of the models is the estimation of fuel overconsumption due to reduced travel speed e.g. in congestions, as well as a model determining the delay costs due to traffic situation. Models and measurement data enable to compare the situation before the construction and after implementation of the structures. The method is demonstrated in the case of the Blanka tunnel complex on City Ring Road, which was opened in September 2015.

2017, TRANSCOM 2017, 12th International Scientific Conference Of Young Scientists On Sustainable, Modern and Safe Transport, Linz, Elsevier BV), p. 336-341), ISSN 1877-7058

In this paper, a pragmatic and goal oriented system for risk analysis in road tunnels is described. It is particularly focusing on mortality risks in case of a road tunnel accident. It is a deterministic approach combining three major components: a) vehicle distribution in a tunnel; b) smoke propagation in case of a fire; and c) people evacuation (escape) component. The major improvement of this approach is in capturing the knowledge often provided only by experts into a robust and pragmatic system available to all decision makers. This is achieved through a large number of scenarios combining different configurations of road tunnels (e.g. different number of lanes, different speed limits) and the travel demand (e.g. different structure of the flow, different volumes of traffic) which were prepared and evaluated through microscopic traffic simulation. The resulting scenarios with the information about the number of vehicles in different tunnel sections were obtained. The results describe most of the existing tunnels and situations and can be used universally. Similarly, the people evacuation component can be evaluated in a general form. The results can be manually updated to suit any particular road tunnel which can differ for example by the availability or quality of warning and information systems. The remaining task is to create a physical model of the real tunnel and to model the smoke and fire propagation. All these components were combined into the CAPITA software that was developed as a part of the research project HADES (supported by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic). The CAPITA software is presented in the last chapter of this paper. The scenarios available off-line are in fact a knowledge base available to experts as well as decision makers and lead to a higher level of comprehension of the developments in case of fire and significantly speed up preparation of a risk analysis.

2017, ISBN 978-1-5386-3825-5