PICAV

Personal Intelligent City Accessible Vehicle System

LaRA Projects | CAOR Projects | IMARA Projects

PICAV (Personal Intelligent City Accessible Vehicle System) is a European FP-7 project which aims at designing a new personal vehicle able to demonstrate a new mobility concept for passengers ensuring accessibility for all in urban pedestrian environments. The new transport system integrates a fleet of PICAV units. These units have some features that are specifically designed for people whose mobility is restricted for different reasons the main drivers of PICAV design are: ergonomics, comfort, stability, small size, mobility dexterity on-board intelligence, assisted driving, eco-sustainability, parking, vehicle/infrastructures intelligent networking.

PICAV system usefully integrates the existing public transport system to make it become more accessible for older and disabled people by acting as a smooth link between walking, bicycle and conventional public transport.

Webpage: http://www.dimec.unige.it/PMAR/picav/index.shtml

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Security: driver recognition system. All critical equipment will be inside the vehicle body and not accessible nor damageable by vandals and users as well (only authorized people should be able to access the equipment). On request, e.g. for security purposes, identity of the passenger can be hidden.

Networking: the fleet of PICAV will provide a new transport mode which is fully integrated with the urban environment, including traditional public transport, parking, traffic/travel information. Networking and driver support services will be based on and exploit available infrastructures (e.g. GPS positioning, GPRS, UMTS, WiFi in equipped areas, Internet-based information services, etc.) and will take into account forthcoming technologies and services (e.g. GALILEO positioning). Access to on-line information and services will be based on most common traffic telematics standards like e.g. DATEX, Open TIS Access Point (OTAP), RDS/TMC, GDF (ISO14825), etc.

Transport service: in principle, the benefits of the proposed transport system on the transport service are not quantifiable because nothing similar exists and because of the social value of the service to a category of people usually excluded by the public transport services. The performance of the transport service will be assessed by the following indicators: accessibility as a measure of availability: distance between PICAV parking lots and public transport stops at the border area less then the maximum walking distance for elderly; transport demand as a measure of quality: 80% of the identified potential users will judge satisfactory the simulated transport system (virtual reality testing); waiting times as a measure of reliability: waiting time at the PACAV parking lots comparable with the waiting time at the public transport stops at the border area. As the innovation of the contribution requires the validation of the concepts, the project will realise a vehicle prototype that will be tested first for the aspect of ergonomics and user compliance and satisfaction. Then the capability of interactions with existing mobility infrastructure will be tested in the field in Barreiro (near to Lisbon). In order to evaluate the efficiency of the fleet management in different environmental scenarios as well as the influence of the new transport system on the pedestrian flows and on the pre-existing traffic conditions, a simulator will be purposely written, set-up and delivered.