21st ECTRI TG Economics and Policy Webinar

Presentations of the Webinar:

Title: Participatory smart cities: a crowdsourced data integration model for sustainable and safer mobility by Manuel Merolla, Research Centre for Transport and Logistics (CTL), Sapienza University of Rome

Abstract: This presentation introduces a research framework that explores how citizen-generated information can meaningfully support sustainable mobility and road-safety planning. The work begins with a review of international literature on crowdsourcing, civic participation, and Intelligent Transport Systems, highlighting how subjective feedback can complement, but never replace, official statistics in understanding urban mobility challenges. The study examines the Danish context, where municipalities widely use Giv et Praj (“Give a tip”) platforms to collect citizen reports on issues such as cycling conditions, traffic safety, and public-space maintenance. This analysis identifies both the strengths of the Danish crowdsourcing ecosystem and the challenges related to reporting behaviour, data variability, and uneven participation across municipalities. Building on these insights, the presentation introduces a data integration model that aligns subjective reports with official accident data. The model incorporates semantic classification, sentiment analysis, feature engineering, and machine learning to classify reports, quantify perception–reality gaps, and forecast accident trends. Case studies from Aarhus, Odense, and Gentofte illustrate how crowdsourced data can reveal latent risks, highlight over- or under-perceived hazards, and improve the interpretability of local safety conditions. Findings show that citizen reports offer valuable signals—especially in larger, data-rich municipalities—but also display systematic biases that must be recognized when used for policy purposes. The presentation concludes by outlining future developments, including the integration of more specialized algorithms for improving the entire framework and AI-based tools for more interactive engagement with citizens.

Seminars are open to the ECTRI Members.
Please contact the Secretariat if you are interested to join: www.ectri.org/contact/