Smart Place Concept
TIL5050 - Interdisciplinary Design Project
11 February 2018
Table of Contents
1. Involved Stakeholders 3
Goudappel Coffeng
Municipality of Amsterdam
2. Design Project 4
Introduction
Scope
Practice and Science
3. Current State Analysis 5
Objective of the project
Problem definition
Research questions
Context analysis
Stakeholder analysis
4. Future State Analysis 8
Design goals
Technical perspective
Methodology and tools for analysis and design
Data requirements
5. Practical 11
Earlier group projects
Projects from the literature
Deliverables
Planning
Contact data
6. References 14
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1. Involved Stakeholders
Goudappel Coffeng
Goudappel Coffeng is a Dutch company whose goal is creating mobility solutions for sustainable
and livable cities. By using integrated network design including bicycles as a vital mode of
transportation, They make cities more attractive and make better use of scarce space. For over
50 years, Goudappel Coffeng has created mobility concepts for cities by aligning city goals and
mobility plans for long terms.
Most of the projects are based on existing architecture which needs to be redesigned to adapt to
future changing demand. This demand can be public transport, cars, cyclists, pedestrians or a
combination of these modalities.
Municipality of Amsterdam
The municipality of Amsterdam is responsible for the whole city in terms of the organization of
space, living, rules and social aspects. The organization is divided in parts where each have their
own responsibility, like Space and Economics, Social, Services and Information, Business
management and Governance and Organization.
The municipality is also divided into seven zones, namely: Centrum, Nieuw-West, Noord, Oost,
West, Zuid and Zuidoost.
In this project, the department that is involved is the Space and Economic division. Their goal is to
make Amsterdam a big, strong, accessible and livable metropolis. Not only on a large scale, but
also on a small scale where every street-corner is analyzed to guarantee the accessibility, safety
and quality of the public space of Amsterdam.
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2. Design Project
Introduction
The Smart Place Concept (SPC) looks at public spaces of the future. Due to the growing
populations in cities, using the public spaces effectively and efficiently is becoming increasingly
important. The demand and need of public spaces differs throughout the day; during rush hours,
space is needed by commuters to get from A to B, whereas during off-peak hours, there is an
increased demand for spaces which can be employed for tourism, shopping, and other
recreational activities. However, due to the current static nature of these spaces, the public space
can be under-/overutilized at certain times, whereas a dynamic space would be able to adapt
dynamically in order to fulfill the demand of its users throughout the day.
The ultimate goal is an environment which gathers data itself and morphs itself to suit the needs
of the users. As such, the public space is self regulating based on the usage of the population.
However, how this self-regulating environment can best be implemented and put into practice, is
still unknown.
Scope
The Smart Place Concept project focuses on traffic and transport engineering, as well as looking
into concepts such as policy analysis and the built environment. These concepts go hand in hand,
so it makes sense to look at the problem (and the solution) from these perspectives for the
various stakeholders.
Practice and Science
The project will have two main components:
1. A theoretical part which will focus on the need for Smart Places and the design of a
toolbox to create such environments;
2. A practical part where infrastructure will be (temporarily) altered and empirical data will be
collected on driver/pedestrian behavior and reaction to certain changes in environment.
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3. Current State Analysis
Objective of the project
The objective of the project is to develop (part of) a toolbox for creating smart places. Although
the toolbox will initially be based on research done in Amsterdam, the objective is to make the
toolbox universal (for the Netherlands) so that the method can be employed throughout the
country to achieve similar results where the public space faces comparable problems.
Problem definition
Public spaces are built to be static, whereas demand is dynamic. Nowadays, modern technology
could be used to transform public spaces in order to suit the demand at different times during the
day, but how this can be done in the most effective and efficient way is not yet known.
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In order to determine which solution is best applied to a certain location, policymakers need a
toolbox which allow them to select the method(s). As shown in the diagram above, a number of
information sources are utilized to deduce the best implementation of a Smart Space in a given
area. Traffic models, phone data and traffic counts can all be used to analyse the traffic patterns
in a specific public space and how these will develop (in the short term). The data is aggregated
and can then be used together with the toolbox to find the optimal solution to turn a static place
into a Smart Space.
Research questions
The project will focus on the following research questions:
● How can data best be collected on the usage of public spaces?
● To what extent can public spaces be made smart to adapt to the dynamic demand
throughout the day?
● To what extent can a toolbox assist a policymaker in determining the best implementation
of technology for creating a public Smart Place?
Context analysis
Goudappel Coffeng is a mobility consultancy agency which aims to create sustainable,
accessible, liveable and economic flourishing cities. Competing consultancy companies with a
focus on engineering, mobility and/or urban environments include (among others) Antea,
Movares, Royal HaskoningDHV, Tauw and Witteveen+Bos.
This problem is different to the common mobility (optimization) problems which policymakers
face. Since this problem is inherently reliant on the use of (new) technology in a way not
commonly found, it requires a new approach for collecting and interpreting data, and finding a
suitable solution.
Due to the collaboration with the municipality of Amsterdam, the policy implications of the Smart
Place Concept will also be considered.
Stakeholder analysis
The main stakeholders when it comes to public spaces are, of course, the public. People who use
the places either for transportation, or for recreational activities such as shopping,
drinking/dining, tourism, etc. As the main user of the space, they directly experience the disutility
of spaces being static and not fit for purpose. Similarly, another stakeholder in this issue is the
municipality of Amsterdam; the organisation responsible for the public spaces and for
representing the residents of Amsterdam and protecting their interests.
Additional stakeholders can also be identified: residents of Amsterdam and shopkeepers. Since
the accessibility and attractiveness of their respective buildings can be affected by the layout of
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the public space, they have an interest in the way in which this space is configured. Additionally,
the producers of the infrastructure and technological equipment necessary to realise the smart
places will naturally have some incentive in this project as well.
These stakeholders can be visualized in a power-interest diagram as shown below:
As shown, the main public space users are high-interest but low-power stakeholders. The
municipality has a similar interest in the public spaces, but has significantly more power as it is
under their responsibility. The manufacturer of the equipment required for smart spaces has a
somewhat high interest, and has some influence on the project since they control the availability
of the technology.
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4. Future State Analysis
Design goals
Public spaces in the current streets of Amsterdam are static and aren’t flexible to adapt to the
demand of space during the day. The city centre of Amsterdam is becoming more attractive and
thus busier. Several peak moments during the day are important to take into account to make a
street capable of coping with a crowd.
The future state of attractive public spaces in Amsterdam can adapt itself autonomously to the
traffic flow in peak- and off peak periods. To achieve this state, it is necessary to formulate a
number of criteria, which fulfill the desires of different stakeholders. Public spaces define a city,
since they are social meeting places and a space where people move continuously. Therefore,
one of the goals is to design public spaces such that it is accessible, attractive and available for
everyone.
To achieve this, it is necessary to have access to relevant data which can be used to create
useful information. Goudappel Coffeng wants to develop a tool, the “Smart Place Dashboard”,
which allows one to see how public space is used currently, which spaces are crowded and
more. Using this dashboard next to analysing public spaces and the current situations, insights
can be gained to support decision making. Our design goal is to provide a base for this
dashboard, underpinned by literature and some experiments in the field if that is feasible in the
timespan of this project. The effectiveness of the data gathering and real time updating of the lay
out of the street will be shown. This will be the starting point of the Smart Place Dashboard that
can be applied in any situation.
Additionally, literature research will be done to help define criteria which meet the desire of the
stakeholders, after which data-analysis will be done based on the data provided by the smart
place dashboard.
Technical perspective
This project has a technical perspective, in the research phase and the design phase. In the
research phase, it will be determined what data is useful for selecting critical areas and
determining the demand of the various modalities during the day. For this purpose, it is
necessary to understand the ways in which data is gathered and how this raw data can be turned
into meaningful data for this dashboard. Furthermore, previous research from the traffic
engineering field will be consulted to discover which methods for dynamic spatial division have
been used before.
In the design phase, a specific concept for one street will be worked out. This design will be
realistic and feasible from an engineering perspective. Where possible, calculations will be used
to justify the design.
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The technical perspective will be the main perspective of this project. Of course, there are other
perspectives that are considered as well, like the policy implications. However, this toolbox that
will be partially designed during this project can be used by the Gemeente Amsterdam to
determine the ideal use from a policy perspective.
Methodology and tools for analysis and design
For this project, it is possible to apply various methods for analysis and design. As explained in
the scope, this project is in the field of traffic engineering and build environment. For the research
phase, an analysis can be based on demand analysis and traffic counts. We will not be modeling
or making simulations, since the microscopic nature of the project and the volatile circumstances
during the day. This is a matter too complex to model, so it is better to observe the actual
situation on the street using various data. Traffic counts offer a simple yet insightful way to
determine the crowdedness of a street at various moments in time. To gather traffic counts, one
can use cameras, loop detectors, smartphone data etc. What is important in choosing the
combination of ways to gather this data, is that the mode is of vital importance. This information
can be used to determine how much space which modality needs during which times. Demand
analysis is needed to determine with what goal people are traversing through the street. This
could be purely transport, recreational or to visit a specific building in that street. It is important to
know for what goals the street is used for a policy maker to decide how to steer the usage of the
street.
This data of traffic counts needs to be analyzed and organized in such a way that it can be used
as input for the decision making process. A certain amount of traffic needs a certain amount of
space or infrastructure design to obtain the best results. The analysis can be done by comparing
the capacity of a certain road and the amount of traffic over that road at a certain moment. If the
traffic at a certain moment is more than the capacity of a road, congestion will arise and this is
valuable input for the design of the infrastructure.
To determine which street will be chosen from the nominated ones, a multiple criteria analysis
will be used. This analysis, further on named the quickscan tool can also be used in future cases
to determine if a street has a demand that requires the smart places concept to be used. Criteria
in this analysis could be the number of modalities per hour, the purposes of the travellers, the
variability of the demand per mode during the day, the overall crowdedness per hour, the
functional goals of the street, safety etc.
In the design phase, it is important to consider all options available nowadays to come to a
optimal solution to satisfy all stakeholders. Therefore, the design phase will start with an analysis
of new traffic management systems used. Where there is data available, this will be used to
determine how successful these measurements were. Also, human behaviour in traffic will be a
point of interest. A system is only useful when people understand it and want to abide to it. Then,
a brainstorm will take place to come to other possible solutions. Solutions will be combined and
visualised in sketches. With the use of the prior new systems and some calculations, the best set
of solutions for the particular street will be chosen and tested in the field.
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Of course, it will not be possible to redesign and redevelop a street in ten weeks, which is why
the experiment will be done with prototypes and dummies. The resulting traffic behaviour can be
observed in this scenario. A survey will not take place, since it would be more interesting in this
case to look at revealed preference. Also, this experiment will only be a small part of the project.
Constructing a survey and gathering enough participants for significant data will take too much
time. Furthermore, it is not desirable to attract too much attention to the fact that the experiment
is going on. It will be interesting to see if people without prior knowledge will use the space in the
way that is desired by the designer.
Data requirements
In this project specific streets in Amsterdam are chosen to analyse their traffic flow. The public
spaces in these streets can be improved a lot, but it is not yet known what should be improved.
Therefore data is necessary to gain meaningful information. Goudappel Coffeng provides data
such as phone-data, wifi-data, camera footage and more. This is data from different resources
and can be used to obtain information and is also very reliable and accurate. Data of different
resources together is more meaningful than data of one resource alone. Therefore big data,
which provide combined data of different resources, is important in this case. With the “Smart
Place Dashboard” of GC analysis of big data can be done to gain meaningful information. In this
way mobility patterns can be made. For example the number of pedestrians in different spaces
can be compared during the day to see if there is a pattern. Mobility patterns can support
decision making to improve the current situation of the public spaces in Amsterdam.
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5. Practical
Earlier group projects
There are projects which are investigating the use of smart places in cities, where subjects like
safety and sustainability are the most important factors. These projects are often from groups of
Architecture or Urban Planning studies which are looking to the future city and how they can
adapt to smart concepts. All of these projects are more or less based on visions rather than
concrete plans or kind of tool boxes they use to make their city smart.
Within the TIL5050 projects, a project was executed at Rotterdam The Hague Airport to redesign
the square before the airport entrance where pedestrians, cyclists, public transport and car traffic
are coming together and are divided into flows in a safe and durable way. But this is all a static
rather than dynamic infrastructure design.
Projects from the literature
As of today, there is much research done in the field of traffic management for all types of
modalities. There are many forms and trends of traffic management and new systems are
developed every day. However, changing the traffic management during a time period is a fairly
new concept. Of course, many people are aware of the usefulness of big data and necessity to
make our environment smart.
Abel Sensors (2015) has developed a sensor which can count road users and is able to classify
these users into cars, cyclists and pedestrians. According to the company, “several estimates can
be made about usage of the road, for example, an increase or decrease in the number of
drivers.” This data is useful for the implementation of the smart place concept.
Deliverables
Phase 1: Model of the Quickscan tool and a report on findings for this tool.
Phase 2: Determining optimal street for case study
Phase 3: Report on Smart Place method / design of case study street(s).
Presentation to be given to Goudappel Coffeng / Municipality of Amsterdam.
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Planning
The following table gives an overview of the timeframe of the project, the major meetings to be
planned, and the general activities each week:
Wk. Starting Activities
0 5 Feb Meeting with Goudappel Coffeng (GC) and Municipality of Amsterdam:
introduction of the project, aligning the goals and the planning.
1 12 Feb Kick-off meeting.
Introduction Day at Goudappel Coffeng in Deventer.
2 19 Feb Phase 1: Determining criteria to be used in Quickscan tool; used for
assessing streets’ eligibility for smart place concept;.
3 26 Feb Continuation of phase 1.
4 5 Mar Concluding phase 1: Meeting with GC and Municipality of Amsterdam to
present results and discuss potential street(s) for case study.
5 12 Mar Phase 2: Apply Quickscan to determine optimal street(s) for case study.
6 19 Mar Mid-term meeting discussing phases 1 and 2 and plans for phase 3.
Phase 3: Designing smart place solution for selected street(s).
7 26 Mar Meeting with GC and Municipality of Amsterdam.
Continuation of phase 3.
8 2 Apr Continuation of phase 3.
9 9 Apr Continuation of phase 3.
(Exam Week)
10 16 Apr Concluding phase 3.
(Exam Week)
11 23 Apr Green light meeting.
12 30 Apr Final presentation.
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Contact data
TU Delft Jaap Vleugel
Course Coordinator 015 278 6487
[email protected]TU Delft Jan Anne Annema
Project Supervisor 015 278 8912
[email protected]TU Delft John Baggen
Project Supervisor 015 278 4813
[email protected]Goudappel Coffeng Lennert Bonnier
Project Supervisor 06 1170 4992
[email protected]Goudappel Coffeng Lucas van der Linde
Project Supervisor 06 1131 4059
[email protected]DAT Mobility Barend Vreugdenhil
Project Supervisor 0570 666 810
Gemeente Amsterdam Ruwan Aluvihare
Project Supervisor 020 255 1702
[email protected]Project Group Member Pui-Yuen Cheng
06 3476 4783
[email protected]Project Group Member Thijs Ebbers
06 3098 9569
[email protected]Project Group Member Tim van Rugge
06 3313 1104
[email protected]Project Group Member Elise Zuurbier
06 1925 6380
[email protected]Contact person for course coordinator: Pui-Yuen Cheng
06 3476 4783
[email protected]Contact person for company: Thijs Ebbers
06 3098 9569
[email protected] 13 / 14
6. References
Abel Sensors. (2015). Traffic counting system Amsterdam. Retrieved 6 February 2018, from
http://www.abelsensors.com/verkeertelsysteem-voor-de-gemeente-amsterdam/
Carter, T. (2018). Smart cities: The future of urban infrastructure. BBC. Retrieved 6 February 2018,
from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131122-smarter-cities-smarter-future
Nam, T., & Pardo, T. (2011). Conceptualizing Smart City with Dimensions of Technology, People,
and Institutions. Albany, NY: State University of New York. Retrieved from
https://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/journals/dgo_2011_smartcity/dgo_2011_smartcity.
pdf
Sánchez-Silva, M. (2018). Providing flexibility to infrastructure design to improve cost efficiency.
Journal of Infrastructure Systems, 24(1) 10.1061/(ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000414
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