Ambient-centred intelligent traffic control and management

In this paper we review the concept of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and investigate its inherent technological services in the light of potential applications to ITS-related scenarios. Albeit AmI and ITS may seem to overlap in many aspects, they are indeed different and their true synergetic and mutual benefits have not been fully explored nor exploited. Therefore, coupling these two emerging fields might foster a cross-fertilization of opportunities, both for researchers in the scientific community and engineers as well as practitioners in charge of traffic operations. Bearing in mind such a challenging motivation, we propose an integrated research framework where AmI meets ITS requirements in the real world, is analysed in a virtual environment and support decision-making within virtual control strategists and management policy makers modelled under the metaphor of autonomous agents. Issues are still to be addressed and are discussed as future work opportunities.