Autonomic Transport Management Systems—Enabler for Smart Cities, Personalized Medicine, Participation and Industry Grid/Industry 4.0

Today’s societies are facing great challenges in transforming living environments in a way better serving people’s demands of the future. A key point in this transformation is reinventing cities as smart cities, where the core services are integrated in a way that ensures a high quality of life while minimizing the usage of resources [Smart cities in Europe. Serie Research Memoranda 0048, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics 1]. Setting up smart cities resp. transforming cities to smart cities includes the development of smart transport systems as a main service all other services rely on. Thinking about current mega trends like Individualization of Products (Mass Customization) in so called Industry grid also known as Industry 4.0 [Umsetzungsempfehlungen für das Zukunftsprojekt Industrie 4.0 2] (Industrie 4.0 describes the industry in the 4th industrial revolution to customized mass production after mechanization, mass production, digitalization [Map ‘n’ tag. Thinking highways 3]), Personalized Medicine or the need of better support for disabled and older people in an aging society, the interconnection of involved bodies is a premise. In virtual world this means integration of data networks and ICTs in the physical world this means establishing individual and personalized transport services that cover individual mobility and individual distribution of goods. To ensure the best utilization of infrastructure while having less employable people in an aging society a high grade of automation and information integration is needed. We call this a smart transport system as the next step in development of today’s intelligent transport systems (ITS) and propose establishing this ITS of the future as an autonomic system to meet all the different requirements and ensure a high reliability of the overall system. Reliability is essential since most other services of the living environment smart city, will rely on transport systems. This chapter gives an overview on state of research based on current literature and recent publications of the authors (see references) and focus on the ICT system needed to manage transportation the autonomic transport management system.