Smart Mobility for Smart Cities

The Future is Now

Smart Mobility for Smart Cities

WHATEVER WE TRY TO PREDICT FOR THE FUTURE HAS A CERTAIN CHANCE TO TURN OUT AS BULLSHIT. REMEMBER THE WORDS OF THOMAS J. WATSON SR., IBM CHAIRMAN, WHO SAID IN DISTANT 1943: “I THINK THERE IS A WORLD MARKET FOR ABOUT 5 COMPUTERS.” NEVERTHELESS, TIME WENT BY, THE TECHNOLOGICAL SCENERY HAS BEEN CHANGING FOLLOWING ITS OWN LAWS. MODERN KEY OPINION LEADER IN DIGITAL ECONOMY GEORGE WESTERMAN RETHOUGHT THE SITUATION IN THE FOLLOWING WAY: “WHEN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IS DONE RIGHT, IT’S LIKE A CATERPILLAR TURNING INTO A BUTTERFLY…”. THE KEY QUESTION IS HOW TO MAKE THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF MOBILITY HAPPEN IN SUCH A WAY THAT YOU GET A BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY AND NOT ANOTHER CATERPILLAR.

However, before hastily implementing unproven disruptive technologies, why don’t we learn fi rst how to sustainably manage all the assets that we have already produced within at least the last two centuries?

We still have a chance to make our existing assets more sustainable. In 2005, researcher Tim Roughgarden (Stanford

Fotocredit: PixaBay / Tingyaoh

University) developed the mathematical foundations that can make computer networks up to 70 % faster. Next, he applied this to navigation principles and described the method by which people seek the way to their destination in the publication “Selfi sh Routing and the Price of Anarchy”. This became a trigger for the founders of Graphmasters. They made something almost impossible come true successfully, proving his scientifi c theories: already now, traffi c fl ows can be increased by up to 30 %.

Another trigger was the experience that 90 % of the vehicles use just 10 % of the available infrastructure and vice versa. Graphmasters has changed this anti-formula, saying that “a world without traffi c jams is a utopia for some and a vision for us”. That is the icing on the cake, but what are the layers of “biscuit” below it?

While everyone wants more mobility, many do not admit that they need to shift from current habits towards more sustainable behaviour. Traffi c in all its forms gets more and more intense and creates enormous challenges for traffi c planners and managers, who must balance between the people’s interests, long-term visions, and economic constraints. In cities, expanding the available infrastructure seems like a simple solution: for example, building more roads to better cope with traffi c density and, as a next step, slowing down the traffi c fl ow by obstacles like temporary driving bans, expensive parking zones, speed reductions and more. Unfortunately, the results are often worse: traffi c jams are getting longer and longer, people would rather pay fi nes than change their behaviour, air pollution is further increasing and there are hardly any improvements visible.

But no worries! Graphmasters is not proposing you to invest yet another “pot of money” into new construction projects or into an innovative “fl ying saucer” to become “the future standard of moving things”. Also, we do not propose a disruptive shift but rather an organic one, even though we do use artifi cial intelligence, big data, user input and various real-time data, e. g. from traffi c control centres.

As a result, we provide multifactor-based optimizations of the mobility system right in its beating heart – on the roads like the ones you see just outside your window.

Since 2013 we pursue the goal of making traffi c better, which has led us to develop a special mode of navigation – collaborative routing. Collaborative routing is based on the principle of swarm intelligence, a phenomenon in which groups of individuals are connected to each other by intensive communication, allowing them to make intelligent decisions through collaboration. On this basis, we have developed our multiple award-winning product NUNAV software-as-a-service. It has paid off for us to listen to science and at the same time learn from nature, which has been pointing the right way for thousands of years.

NUNAV impresses with its data updates at second intervals, which means that the routing takes place practically in real-time. This is possible because our technology is based not on pre-planned modules, but on a cloud solution. Instead of directing all road users going from A to B on one and the same route, as in air traffi c each person is given an individual slot. As we calculate the capacity of the road networks, our system can fully utilize the existing resources. Thus, the fl ows in the entire traffi c system are speeded by up to 30 %, and potential traffi c jams are avoided.

Another important feature is the so-called Strategy Editor, which enables authorities to virtually block individual corridors or optimally redirect the traffi c in accordance with inner-city restrictions or travel bans. This can also be done in real-time and at the push of a button, allowing immediate reaction to any changes in the current traffi c situation. This is an important factor in preventing an undesired shift of traffi c to side streets, residential areas, or other traffi c-reduced zones, e. g. during major events such as trade fairs, concerts, and sports events. Examples are the Hanover Marathon with more than 200’000 visitors in 2018, national festivities during the German Unity Day in 2019, concerts of Eminem (2018) and Helene Fischer (2019). Graphmasters is the offi cial partner of Deutsche Messe AG for the routing to all their trade fairs in Hanover, which is the biggest fair ground in the world! “The intelligent, digital traffi c management in Lower Saxony with NUNAV is unique in Germany. For the fi rst time, we can address individual cars and, for example, guide them specifi cally to Park and Ride parking lots,” says Christoph Koppe, head of operational traffi c management in the traffi c management centre Hanover.

The technology also works in a similar way for any urban utilities which use fl eets to fulfi l their services such as street cleaning, garbage collection and more. In fact, good management

of these prosaic daily needs has positive eff ects on the quality of life for the people around. And this is what really matters.

Let’s come to another side of the challenge: logistics, retail and parcel deliveries. With NUNAV Courier, we off er cities and municipalities a noticeable reduction in traffi c fl ows through intelligent organization and route optimization for these industries. This is right on the cutting edge, given rapid e-commerce increase resulting in huge workloads for couriers. With our AI-based turn-by-turn navigation services and route optimization algorithms, we optimize entire depots, saving our customers’ assets and ensuring a positive contribution to climate protection.

Just to illustrate the dimensions of our impact: Hermes, Graphmasters’ largest customer in the fi eld of delivery services in Germany, has been using Graphmasters NUNAV technology for quite some time and, since then, the company has been saving more kilometres than the distance from the earth to the moon and back, every week! Even now with COVID-19, the number of kilometres driven by Hermes has not increased despite the tremendous growth in parcel volumes. “With this effi cient traffi c management on every tour, we can massively reduce the number of kilometres. This also has a positive eff ect on climate,” confi rms Marco Schlüter, COO, Hermes Germany GmbH.

These achievements might be the new benchmark in the courier, express and parcel industry (CEP). And beyond. True to our vision, we live up to our joint responsibility for the urban and rural sustainable development and well-being. Now having the right tools for effi cient and sustainable traffi c planning and management, we can bring technological innovation into harmony with ecological and economic requirements. Therefore, you and we will no longer lose our minutes, hours and days per year being stuck in traffi c jams.

And fi nally, our AI-based NUNAV technology fi ts both manually driven as well as autonomous means of transport, virtually connecting them with each other and integrating them into the entire urban eco-system. Thus, thinking realistically but in a future-oriented way, we want to reap the benefi ts of a systematic and smart mobility management. That’s how we are turning a caterpillar into a butterfl y. Now.