Two years ago, Vilnius launched a virtual city mobility map to help monitor the city’s pulse even more accurately and, through data analysis, address its infrastructure challenges. Vilnius city planners and public transport administrators will start using the full potential of the system this year, and the map will be opened to the public in the later stages of the project.
This virtual mapping system is based on data collected by mobile operators. The personalised data collected is processed by ID Vilnius specialists and displayed on a virtual map showing the trajectories of cars, public transport, bicycles, pedestrians and the largest centres of concentration. According to Stasys Savilionis, Head of the Data Management Group at ID Vilnius, the project is unparalleled in Europe. “Monitoring the mobility habits of Vilnius residents will allow us to plan the city’s traffic more effectively. The map is unique in that various public authorities will be able to plan more accurately changes in traffic regulation and public transport, as well as the need for cycling and walking paths, by seeing the travel habits of the city’s citizens,” said Savilionis.
For analysis, not prohibitions
The map can show where and how people arrive at educational institutions, how traffic changes during the festive period, where the worst congestion occurs, where accidents are most frequent, and where infrastructure problems are revealed. The system is capable of benchmarking by selected day, week or month.
“The data comes not only from the capital, but also from surrounding areas such as Trakai and Vilnius. A wider area was chosen to better understand how many people come to Vilnius to access education or health services. It is also possible to observe how many people living in the suburbs come to the city to work and at the same time use public transport or road infrastructure.
It is important to stress that the system is only for planning and improving urban mobility, not for imposing bans”, said S. Savilionis.
How does the system work?
The Vilnius City Mobility Map is a working tool for city transport planners and traffic management professionals. The system itself has no analogues in the Baltic States or in Europe. It works based in the data collected by mobile operators.
“The map is a combination of all possible data sources: traffic sensors, drone calculations and, of course, personalized data from mobile operators. Thanks to the latter, it is possible to predict the traffic flow of even the smallest streets at selected times”, said S. Savilionis.
Helping street cleaners
The Mobility Map consists of four parts: street analytics, comparison, accessibility and a map that gives you a quick overview of which streets are the busiest and which are the least busy.
“The Street Analytics tool is useful for analyzing the intensity of streets. Here, road works are carried out at the least intense time possible on a given street during the day to cause the least inconvenience to residents.
The tool also allows comparing traffic volumes on the same streets during different periods – say, summer and autumn. For example, one of the busiest streets, T. Narbutas Street, has to cope with almost twice as much traffic in September as in August, because everyone is returning from holidays and children are being taken to school,” said S. Savilionis.
The system can monitor not only car flows, but also public transport, cycling and pedestrian flows and their changes. Traffic lights are also adjusted according to the data received. Street lighting, cleaning frequency and pavement infrastructure also depend on the level of flows: with the current system, services no longer need to calculate additional flows themselves.
Signals public transport needs
The accessibility part of the map is particularly important to understand how people in Vilnius and its suburbs move around. It is this data that helps planners of public transport routes and schedules. It is possible to see at what times the most people congregate in certain areas of the city. During the day, these are usually business centers or educational institutions.
“As city planners, it’s important for us to make educational and medical facilities as accessible as possible. For example, if we see at least 30 people coming from a certain street to an educational institution, we look at whether the public transport route is suitable and convenient.
Perhaps many young families with children have settled in a newly built housing estate, but there is no public transport structure, which means that there will inevitably be an increase in car traffic. Such data allows you to plan for the changes that residents need,” explained the ID Vilnius specialist.
No need for user surveys
According to Marius Berulis, Senior Planning Specialist at “Susisiekimo paslaugos”, although the system and the map are still under development, the data is already being used.
“We are analyzing the system data to find out what is happening in the city at certain times of the day and where the biggest traffic flows are coming from and going to. We compare the information with our own data and make changes to public transport timetables or routes as required,” said Mr. Berulis.
He added that “JUDU” systems will soon also be integrated into the map, so the platform will allow live monitoring of the city at any given moment. It will soon become a key tool for city planning and behavioral monitoring.
“To find out which ward the most frequent commuters come from, we surveyed around 3,000 users every year. Now the interactive map will make the data instantaneous. By seeing the behavior of each day and even hour, we will be able to respond more quickly and efficiently to the needs of the citizens,” said a specialist from “Susisiekimo paslaugos”.
According to M. Berulis, this is particularly useful for planning changes, as it allows you to see how people behave at certain times of the week or day. For example, morning journeys to educational institutions: it is now much clearer where people are coming from, so changes to public transport routes or frequencies can be planned more quickly.
November is the busiest month of the year
Vilnius is drowning in traffic jams on Monday mornings and on Fridays towards the end of the week. But is this really the most difficult time for the capital’s streets? ID Vilnius has collected data from the past year to answer this question.
“The busiest traffic in the capital last year was in November, and the busiest day was the 10th of November. Traffic was particularly heavy between 4 pm and 5 pm. The system also allows us to distinguish the busiest hour of the year, which was the Savanoriai Ave. roundabout on 16 August between 11 pm and midnight – that was the evening of the Imagine Dragons concert in Vilnius Vingis Park,” S. Savilionis said.
According to the expert, February was the calmest month of the year on the streets and the calmest day of the year was 15 April, the first Saturday after Easter.
The busiest sections of the city’s streets were also identified. In 2022, this was the section of Ukmergė St. near the roundabout of Geležinis Vilkas St. and Konstitucija Ave. And last year, the busiest section was Žirmūnai Street near Šilas Bridge.