Towards an architectural framework for the design of a Cyber-Physical Urban Mobility System in Developing Countries

Abstract

Cyber-physical oriented architectures are very recent approaches that aim at coupling physical system architectures with computer programs to facilitate the control and management of complex interactions. In the field of urban mobility, the context is marked by strong demographic growth and rapid urbanization of cities, making travel difficult. While mobility models (physical and informational) applied in industrialized countries help to control this problem while promoting continuous improvement, developing countries (DCs) are faced with a dilemma: directly transpose existing proven models (with the risk of poor adequacy to immediate local needs), or develop new models that may lack maturity. The objective of this paper is to propose a cyber-physical mobility architecture that combines the maturity of proven models with the strong suitability of a new approach to the developing country context. The aim is to set up a decision support system in the form of recommendations, based on the coupling between the definition of a physical transport system and the definition of the appropriate information system, according to a system engineering approach.