CityFlows

The quality of life in European metropolitan areas is under pressure. A steady increase of the population in combination with the rapid expansion of city tourism frequently causes crowd-related issues. In recent years, universities, research institutes and municipalities have developed techniques to A) monitor crowd movements by means of the state-of-the-art crowd sensing systems, and B) pro-actively manage crowded spaces using real-time decision support systems. These ad hoc and specialist pilots have shown that the liveability of the inner cities can be improved substantially by means of pro-active crowd management, but are currently not ready for large scale deployment. 

The objective of CityFlows is twofold, namely to i) improve liveability in urban environments by deploying a crowd monitoring decision support system (CM-DSS) on a city-scale and ii) to make a CM-DSS ready for the international market. The main goal is to improve the liveability of crowded pedestrian spaces through the provision of decision-support for the management of pedestrian flows. The first objective is to operate the CityFlows CM-DSS in four living labs across Europe, which will demonstrate that any professional, whose ambition is to improve the service, throughput or safety, can use the CM-DSS to re-design and manage crowded pedestrian spaces. Large pilots are organized in the City of Amsterdam (ArenA Boulevard & COVID-19 living lab), Milan (Milano Centrale) and Barcelona (Parc Guell), which all feature state-of-the-art crowd monitoring systems and analysis techniques. 

CityFlows’ secondary objective is to create an active and involved user-base for CM-DSSs through the education of city officials, security officers and crowd management organisations regarding the benefits of this type of decision-support system in the process. CityFlows aims to accelerate the market opportunities of the CityFlows CM-DSS, and innovative pro-active pedestrian management systems in general through education, hands-on experience/direct involvement and communication.