Accurate to the home: how transport cartography is developing

Digitalization of transport and new services for Muscovites

The transport framework of the metropolitan agglomeration continues to develop in Moscow. Along with the new rail routes and the reconstruction of the land transport route network, significant changes are taking place in the field of informatization of mobility. Digital systems optimize traffic and make transport more transparent for the user, both at the level of the agglomeration as a whole and with details down to an individual house.

A modern integrated transport system of any scale – within a district, city, region, the whole country – cannot be imagined without a digital control loop. Now digital systems of automation and traffic telemetry have taken over the service of urban transport in Moscow. They are being introduced on new metro lines from the very beginning – for example, the Big Circle Line (BKL) is equipped with modern Russian digital ATDP systems, the full passenger launch of which is expected this year. An “upgrade” of analog systems to a modern level is also carried out on existing lines – for example, during the New Year holidays, the system was introduced on the Circle Line, which went into operation back in 1954.

It does not do without updating the signaling systems (signaling, centralization and blocking) and when launching urban and suburban railways into modern passenger operation. Let’s say, from the very beginning, informatization touched the Moscow Central Circle (MCC), automatics are also updated on the MCD railway diameters as the lines are reconstructed.

As for buses and electric buses in Moscow, here the informatization of traffic control has qualitatively changed the situation. What passengers can see – the displayed time until the desired route arrives on the scoreboard or on the online map – is just the tip of the iceberg. The true scale of changes is visible only to traffic service specialists: digitalization has made it possible to use the rolling stock most efficiently. And this is a reduction in traffic intervals and, ultimately, the passenger’s travel time to work or social facilities.

Informatization of the transport frame made it possible to assess the situation with transport accessibility for each specific house. This is used by city services when planning urban development activities, and for an ordinary city dweller, such functionality makes it possible to see the traffic situation when choosing a home for rent or purchase. The service for this, called “Learn about LCD”, was developed by the Department of Transport on the initiative of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and is running in test mode at uznai.mos.ru.

Two more partners of the project are the Cian real estate search portal (this service also works on its website) and the 2GIS cartographic resource. Both of these platforms are completely domestic, which is important in a project that works with big data. At the same time, the service is also made independent from developers – this is a necessary requirement for a resource that is made as an objective measurement tool.

To date, Learn about Residential Complex has data on 260 new buildings commissioned since 2021. Soon the system will begin to calculate the rating of the apartments. Each residential complex has its own rating in terms of transport availability. It consists of two indicators – geographic accessibility and residential complex infrastructure, and is calculated according to more than 35 parameters of different significance. Let’s say that the maximum “weight” is the parameter of the remoteness of the house from the metro, as the most popular type of public transport in the metropolis. But parameters such as parking accessibility and even the availability of bicycle storage also make their contribution.

The times of discussions about whether the digitalization of basic urban systems, such as transport, are already over: a high degree of informatization of all city services has become an indispensable fact. And the fact that digital control loops provide a new level of convenience not only to the organizers of transportation, but also to residents of the city, can only be welcomed.