Smart City Planning

In December 2015, the 196 countries attending the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris came to an historic agreement that could have the most profound repercussions for the future of the world.

In December 2015, the 196 countries attending the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris came to an historic agreement that could have the most profound repercussions for the future of the world. SYSTRA’s Matt Pollard and Duncan Irons have been working on the project.

The so-called Paris Agreement, if ratified by the required 55 governments, will bring net worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases down to zero by the second half of this century, limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees and, quite possibly, saving the planet. It is a boldly ambitious proposal – to some it looks impossibly ambitious – but some of the tools that could make that ambition a reality, including innovative transport models developed by SYSTRA, could soon be available thanks to the EU- funded InSMART project.

InSMART (Integrative Smart City Planning), launched in 2013 and coming to completion this year, is a collaboration of four European cities – Évora in Portugal, Cesena in Italy, Nottingham in the United Kingdom and Trikala in Greece – and six technical partners, with SYSTRA as the lead partner on transport. The project aims to overcome one of the greatest obstacles to sustainable urban planning: the sheer complexity and interconnectedness of the modern city and its energy needs.

SYSTRA was tasked with delivering the transport ’package’ of the overall project. This required an analysis of transport flows, energy use and emissions for each of the transport modes in the participating cities, along with the definition of scenarios to reduce energy use and carbon emissions without reducing travellers’ utility. To test the defined scenarios, an innovative modelling platform was created which represented a significant departure in transport forecasting in terms of environmental impact.

Read more about InSMART here or contact Matt Pollard at mpollard@systra.com