Projects

Professional drivers from logistics companies take part in the agile pilot by giving feedback about the feasibility and further development needs of the solution. They also validate and complement the data on loading sites.

The pilot is a part of the “Keksi pyörä uudelleen!” innovation challenge organized by HKL (Helsinki City Transport) in the spring of 2020.

Traffic measuring points are planned for the main junctions for vehicle traffic to and from Jätkäsaari. The objective is to get a better understanding of the traffic to and from Jätkäsaari. In addition to just number of vehicles, also the time spent there (e.g. short visits for maybe dropping off people to the terminal) as well as estimates of the emissions they bring in. There will be two measuring periods, first one being in Nov/Dec 2020 and the other in the spring of 2021.

The camera-based devices automatically identify licence plates of cars, and derive technical vehicle information from Traficom’s database. The use of licence plate information is approved by Traficom and it complies with national privacy and data security requirements.

No personal information (such as car owners’ names, addresses etc) is queried in the process. Vehicle information is used to produce traffic statistics, and individual road users cannot be identified at any stage of the analysis.More information on Nodeon’s solution, including data privacy can be found here.

The pilot implements a local distribution centre for parcels. The hub, operated jointly by six operators, is located next to Helsinki’s busy Baana pedestrian and bicycle corridor. It was opened on 9 June 2020. The pilot runs until the end of 2020 and during that time, companies can bring their parcels to the shared distribution centre instead of every delivery company driving into the congested city centre with their own vehicles. From there, the deliveries are coordinated resource-efficiently utilising electric bikes and other low-emission transport modes.

The LMAD project includes building a robot, a fleet management system that enables autonomous mobility and an order system that allows the robot to communicate with customers. In addition to the technical implementation, a service concept is created by means of co-creation and service design and tested in a genuine urban environment with genuine customers.

The data is stored and available in OpenStreetMap and for demonstration purposes an example application app.gatesolve.com is created. It visualises entrances and routes of last 50 meters to them. More information on the collected data and a preview service is available in the Materials and Data section.

Vianova’s solution is based on MDS (Mobility Data Specification) communication protocol which enables bilateral and secure exchange of data between mobility providers and cities.

First, data is collected to detect road crossings. Later, the intention was to send alerts nearby drivers to prevent a potential collision but due insufficient amount of data and users, the pilot did not proceed to the next phases.

The technology can alert drivers even if the pedestrian is located behind an obstacle and the driver can’t see him. The incident data can also be used by the city itself to improve the city road safety infrastructure. Jätkäsaari Mobility Lab supports the pilot by helping in finding test users to use the application which is available both for Android and iOS. The application also utilises Helsinki’s open data to map whether road crossings are done at crosswalks or traffic lights. 

Key functionalities that were planned:

Pedestrian mode

– Road safety behavior stats to improve on-road behavior
– Real-time alert in case the user watches the smartphone when approaching a road
– Volume control – Adjusting headphones volume near roads

Driver mode

– Collision detection alert – Alert drivers on possible collision with pedestrians, even when the pedestrian is behind obstacles and the driver cannot see him
– Alerting drivers in possible collision situations
– Real-time notification when entering crowded pedestrian areas

City road safety dashboard

– Aggregated and statistical data for the city for better planning the physical infrastructure for pedestrians’ road safety (e.g. crosswalk planning, bicycle trails, traffic light optimization)

This data feeds to further research on possibilities to improve traffic fluency with the help of traffic signal optimization based on the application of AI. The area monitored by the first setup near the Clarion hotel is illustrated in this image of the installation, camera view and radar. Open data from the radars is available for third party development purposes, more information on it can be found here.

Project focuses on port-related traffic in Jätkäsaari, street canyons and 40K daily vehicles in Mäkelänkatu-Kumpula area, and domestic wood-burning in combination with adjacent main roads in Pakila.

The overall challenge is that measuring, analysis and dissemination of air quality data in any given location is very complicated and contaminated with error. Lack of real-time and reliable high resolution data has led to a situation where finding targeted interventions that take into account our citizens and their needs while also targeting specific pollution concentrations is missing for all European cities.

Forum Virium Helsinki facilitated altogether eight agile pilots of novel mobility services and technologies, strongly focusing on co-creation.

Produced and designed by CyPhyLab, a laboratory operating under Technische Universität Berlin’s Institute of Architecture, the hexagonal city smart light is an IoT-based cyber-physical system of networked personalised lights mainly for outdoor use. The colour of the lights can also be adjusted using a mobile application provided free of charge for the end users ie. citizens so that the lights can guide people from A to B. 

The project’s influencing methods are co-created with residents. At the same time, the project creates tools for both residents and data collection, thus facilitating local-level city planning.

Related open data and APIs: https://helsinki.liikennenyt.fi/opendata/

As continuation for a FinEst Smart Mobility innovation pilot, a traffic situational picture solution is implemented in West Harbour. The project produces open data and information for third parties, such as traffic events and road incidents in the area, traffic congestion, route recommendations as well as the number of vehicles arriving through the harbour gates.

For more information, you can access the GoSwift pilot report in HERE.

Apart from enhanced visibility, the smart traffic sign includes technology that generates data on traffic volumes, speed, air quality and environmental conditions for transport and city planners.

The data produced during the piloting is available through Helsinki Region Infoshare: www.hri.fi. The aim of this service was to help streamline all modes of transport on the Helsinki West Harbour – Tallinn Old City Harbour route, and to make it possible to integrate the ferry traffic into existing journey planners on both sides of the Gulf of Finland.