Jiří Růžička

Autonomous public transport is becoming an integral component of the Smart City paradigm and, concurrently, a key element of critical urban infrastructure. Besides operational benefits, increasing automation, connectivity, and digitalization introduce updated requirements for security, reliability, and resilience against cyberattacks and unintended system behaviors. This article presents a methodological and technological framework for deploying autonomous public transport management in urban environments, with a special emphasis on rail-based modes and their safe integration into a city's critical infrastructure. The proposed approach combines dynamic HD maps, a digital twin of the urban environment, and cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) to achieve precise localization, enhanced situational awareness, and real-time data exchange among vehicles, infrastructure, and dispatch centers. Vehicle and infrastructure sensors feed a unified data platform that supports monitoring, diagnostics, and operational control. The architecture prioritizes secure data transmission, network segmentation, access control, and cyber-threat mitigation to ensure business continuity and high service availability. Functionality was verified on a pilot section of a real tram line instrumented with infrastructure and onboard sensors; testing occurred under normal operating conditions with driver supervision for maximum safety. The results indicate the feasibility of gradual autonomy introduction while maintaining high levels of safety and compliance with critical-infrastructure requirements. The combination of HD maps, a digital twin, and security-by-design principles significantly improves robustness, interoperability, and resilience to operational and cyber risks.

Traffic lights are a key tool to ensure safe and smooth traffic control in smart cities. Due to the complexity of the urban traffic situations, including different needs for different road users, dense development, and special constraints, the traffic light design process is not trivial. Modern trends in the field of traffic light control systems (TLS) primarily aim at greater adaptability, the use of predictive algorithms and the integration of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) communication, while maintaining comprehensibility and user-friendliness for all traffic participants. One of the key issues in European R&D is sustainable transport, as efforts to reduce emissions and energy consumption are becoming increasingly important. As part of the first phase of the international TransUrban project, a research and analysis of current TLS in Germany and the Czech Republic was carried out. Through qualitative interviews with leading experts in the fields of traffic engineering and C-ITS, the key current and future challenges of these systems were examined and assessed, with an emphasis on sustainability aspects. The research questions focused on the development of new control systems and on the increasing importance of prioritizing certain road users at traffic lights Experts suggest that, whilst the current TLS is functioning well, further improvements are needed in managing complex networks and in data-driven control. Differences emerge in evaluation approaches and preferred applications, whereas both countries share common views on key development directions and the relevance of cooperative and data-based solutions.

The aim of the article is to present a comprehensive procedure for processing and evaluating directional data from vehicle license plates, focusing on the specific challenges of areas that are sparsely or not at all equipped with permanently located standard license plate recognition systems. This remains a current issue, especially in smaller towns; it leads to the implementation of short-term directional traffic surveys, often using inexpensive measurement devices, in order to obtain directional traffic data. In this research, a procedure for evaluating license plate recognition data is proposed with a primary focus on its simple adaptability and automation for any subsequent use. The data sources considered are primarily the above-mentioned traffic surveys; however, the proposed evaluation procedure is theoretically transferable to any off-line data obtained from license plate recognition systems. Identifying potential inaccuracies in the data is also an integral part of the evaluation process. The design of the proposed procedure follows the Checkland soft systems methodology and the functionality of the resulting procedure was validated through a case study of a directional survey in Prague. The proposed procedure contributes to greater accuracy of the conclusions drawn from evaluated traffic engineering parameters under non-ideal, but common conditions of smaller cities, not only in the Czech Republic.

This paper provides an overview of the current challenges that occur within the design of the urban mobility concept and urban development concept. These challenges are discussed in view of the unique ELABORATOR project, which brings together different approaches and measures in a total of 12 European cities to improve micro mobility and sustainability and prove a concept toward climate-neutral cities. The main goal of the paper is to clearly describe the current state of mobility in the city of Liberec in the Rochlice housing estate area with the main objective focused on parking availability and identification of undesirable phenomena (incorrect parking, exhausted parking capacity, difficult passage for rescue services etc.). Therefore, the definition of ongoing problems is described from default to design and propose strategic interventions towards efficient parking supporting local mobility needs. Parallelly, the evaluation methodology is defined according to the requirements of strategically defined goals in sustainable urban mobility plans and the goals of the project. The proposed methodology reflects in situ measurement, identification of large-scale impacts based on quantitative analysis, and qualitative feedback collection from public events and applied interviews with city residents, and last but not least, the use of shared experiences of cities within the ELABORATOR project. This complex solution is defined to improve parking availability and to measure the real impact of proposed interventions on traffic on dedicated housing estates.

In the context of nature protection, there is an effort to regulate individual car traffic in protected areas. In the framework of the research, a pilot testing of a vehicle detection and identification system in the Krkonoše National Park was carried out using two selected technologies (license plate recognition and Bluetooth token detection). The research was carried out under conditions of poorer availability of mobile signal for transmission of measured data, lack of electrical power supply, and in challenging climatic conditions in the mountains. The main objective was to verify the applicability and limits of the mentioned technologies under these difficult conditions. For this purpose, two test sites were built: a fixed and a mobile point. Testing at both points was carried out using two basic methods, namely online through continuous data collection from the detectors and on-site through a local survey during the summer of 2022. The parameters evaluated were the reliability of the vehicle identification itself and the reliability of the operation of the individual detection subsystems and the tested system as a whole. The results show that the license plate recognition system using two cameras for the checkpoint shows a high recognition reliability, but it is reduced for some types of vehicles (especially motorcycles and four-wheelers). At the same time, this technology is demanding on energy resources. Detection using a Bluetooth scanner has proven to be highly reliable up to 50 km/h. A reliable power supply is necessary to achieve high reliability, which was a problem at the mobile point. Evaluation of images from cameras with motion detection showed the limits of this technology, which increased with increasing vehicle speed. The system can be used to detect traffic in protected areas, taking into account the limits specified in this article.