Projects to support traffic management and public transport are among those to have won funding from the Geospatial Commission and Innovate UK in their transport location data competition.
The organisations have announced the allocation of £2 million among 28 projects, with winners receiving up to £75,000 each – with the aim of developing smart mobility solutions.
The funding has been allocated for projects under four themes: mobility as a service, active travel, supply chains and boosting capacity.
Several of the winning projects relevant to public services are under the mobility as a service theme:
- City Science Corporation is using new open data to progress mobility as a service to influence positive travel behaviour.
- Modal is aiming to increase the adoption of mobility as a service through real time detection of passenger journeys, delivering new services such as automated train delay refunds.
- CGA Simulation is creating a scenario planning simulator to predict where infrastructure for transport will be required based on behaviour.
- Ricardo UK is working on flexible geo-fencing architecture and implementation to reduce emissions and improve air quality.
- Rural Technologies is developing the ethical exploitation of geo data integration to improve access to location data services in rural areas.
- Slingshot Simulation is building a digital twin to auto generate 3D models of Yorkshire and surrounding areas including their transport.
Others are under the building capacity theme:
- Hack Partners is using internet of things and geodata to detect train movements.
- Mott MacDonald is building a digital twin to model traffic conditions on networks in real time.
- Prospecitve labs is working on a bus priority system delivered through the satnav on individual vehicles to enable local authorities and transit operators to better manage the flow of business and emergency services vehicles.
- Movement Strategies is creating an AI tool for regional traffic managers to forecast patterns across their networks.
- Comms365 is using geospatial data from sensors and electric vehicle charging points to provide real time information on the availability of the latter.
- Openspace Group is developing a system to use geographic information and AI techniques to fuse existing railway and geospatial datasets to generate real time decision support for station operators at St Pancras.
- Reliable Data Systems International is working on a service to improve estimates of train locations using GPS.
- Thales Transport and Security is deploying a geospatially based identification tool to manage risk on rail tracks.
Minister for the Cabinet Office Lord True said: “These innovative location data winners will help the government unlock £2 billion of economic value in our transport sector to improve services, enabling the efficient delivery of new networks and transport corridors connecting people to the jobs they need, the goods and services they want, and the places they want to go.”
Image from iStock, Cherezoff