Supporting smart mobility with RFID technology

Many EU urban mobility systems are close to breakdown. To increase the efficiency of the European Union’s transport network and achieve its sustainability objectives, municipalities and urban mobility agencies are turning to a range of new transport management tools and strategies. These are capable of providing flexible management and control of all the vehicles entering, travelling across and parking in large cities, towns and rural areas alike. 

By positioning Kiunsys as a global solutions provider, the project helped to develop a range of RFID-based mobility management and monitoring systems that are currently being adopted by 40 cities all over Italy. 

Understanding RFID

RFID uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags that have been attached to an object. These RFID tags or smart codes are essentially intelligent bar codes that can talk to a networked system to track products, vehicles and people. In addition to the tag, the system also includes an RFID reader and antenna. The tags have an integrated circuit and an antenna which transmits the data to the reader. The reader then converts the radio waves to a more usable form of data before transferring it to a database. 

Numerous industrial sectors are set to benefit from RFID technology. In urban mobility and city freight logistics, RFID is essential for implementing more sophisticated and flexible urban regulations for accessing and parking in city centres and private areas. For example, with RFID, city operators can regulate parking by time (e.g. 30 minutes from the time of entry); type of user (e.g. a disabled person should have free access with no obligation to register the licence plate); numbers (e.g. 1 000 entries from 20:00 to 22:00); and type of goods.

Smart solutions 

Thanks to the collaboration of its shareholders, Kiunsys developed a set of RFID-based systems for such critical applications. To accomplish this, the project carried out a number of R&D activities in the field of hardware and middleware based on RF/wireless technologies, and developed real-time and near-real-time software services. 

Examples of these services include:

RFID mobility gate for controlling and tracking vehicles;Dual-band mobility pass for the electronic identification of vehicles;Parking spot sensor for parking occupancy detection;INES cloud platform for the management of services for city managers and citizens.

Each of Kiunsys’ ready-to-use hardware and software products are characterised by a high degree of modularity and adaptability. Together, they represent an industry-leading, comprehensive portfolio of mobility solutions. 

Beyond Molise

Although these services were created in the Molise region, each was designed to be modular and scalable and thus readily adapted for use in other cities and by other sectors. For this reason, Kiunsys ranks among the major players in the smart mobility market, operational in 40 cities across Italy and Europe. It has also been selected by Deutsche Telekom as their preferred commercial and tech partner for European smart mobility solutions.    

Total investment and EU funding 

Total investment for the project “Foundation of Kiunsys SRL.” is EUR 544 618, with the EU’s European Regional Development Fund contributing EUR 299 321 through the “Molise” Operational Programme for the 2007-2013 programming period.