Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Award finalists revealed

Winners will be announced on 20 March

Parking apps, sensors, empty space mapping and bay reservation systems are among the technologies competing for recognition in a European transport innovation awards.

A jury of international transportation experts has selected the shortlist of nominees of the biennial Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Awards. A field of 60 entries has been narrowed down to the final 15, leaving three nominees in each of the five categories: Infrastructure, Parking, Safety, Smart Mobility and Traffic Management.

The final winners will be announced at the opening ceremony of Intertraffic Amsterdam, which takes place at RAI Amsterdam between 20-23 March.

Parking

Jury member Jorrit Weerman, chief executive of Parking Network, said: “The need for smart cities has lead the parking industry to what is perhaps one of its most innovative moments in history. The participants of the Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Award 2018 represent the need for smart cities, for clean cities and for cities that meet the demands of the 21st century.” 

Self-powered Parking Sensor by ParkHere (Germany)

Stand 07.410
Parking sensors register whether or not a car is parked in a spot. ParkHere is a parking sensor that does not need any kind of external supply. Instead it uses kinetic energy-harvesting to produce the energy needed to send a signal to the base station that, in turn, forwards the data to a cloud server. The system also offers the possibility to inform drivers of the size of a parking space on-street, thus meeting the growing demand of cities to optimise the available space for different car sizes. 

The Urban Mobility Control Management Hub by ParkNow, Parkmobile Group (Germany)

Stand 02.105
ParkNow has developed an integrated parking ecosystem for Paris using its new urban mobility control management and parking system. The digitisation of parking combines cashless apps, parking meters, permits and enforcement data with the aim of optimising traffic flow. The hub processes penalties and helps reduce emissions during ‘Pollution Days’ via dynamic pricing. A unified on-demand dashboard provides the city council with hands-on control.

Imapark by Sernis Technologic Solutions (Portugal)

Stand 01.336
Imapark is an on-street intelligent parking management system that helps drivers find and reserve a parking space on public roads more quickly than using sensors, road studs, electronic displays and mobile app. Using the app, it is possible to visualise in real-time available parking spots, reserve a parking space for a certain time and pay for the service.

Infrastructure

Jury member, Adam Hill, editor of ITS International Magazine, said: “Evolution rather than revolution was a major theme of the entries in the Infrastructure category this year. On display were a number of more refined ways of performing existing tasks, with smart uses of technology. A couple of entries stood out for their imagination, apparent simplicity and technical verve, with environmental considerations strongly to the fore.”

Asura Recognition Unit by Asura (Hungary)

Stand 11.107
ARU is a ‘plug & play’ automated number plate recognition (ANPR) system. ARU is camera-independent, being designed to works with any IP camera to deliver high recognition rates using validation algorithms. ARU stores and pushes ANPR results to business applications in a choice of MySQL, XML or CSV formats.

OptiWIM by Cross Zlín (Czech Republic)

Stand 10.111
Weigh-in-motion (WIM) is a technology for protecting infrastructure from excess wear and tear caused by overweight vehicles. The OptiWIM sensor is a free-flow capable device that is claimed to be accurate to 3%, temperature compensated and radio-frequency (RF) immune. A single sensor row detects vehicle width, double-tyre and tyre pressure.

FlexyLight Bollard by Saedi (Italy)

Stand 05.337
The FlexyLight Bollard’s design combines the advantages of different kinds of bollards, enabling it to be used in places such as bus stations, turning circles and parking garages.. It is flexible and can be moved up to 90 degrees in any direction. In addition, there are various rigidity set-up options. It is illuminated and has a colour-change function. There is the option of either solar or network power supply. The bollard is removable in under 20 seconds.

Traffic Management

Jury member Tom Stone, editor of Traffic Technology International magazine said: “The trend for increasingly multifunctional systems was evident in the strongest entries in the Traffic Management category. Whereas in the past multiple devices were required, each performing a single function. Now smarter hardware is being built that can perform multiple tasks; and smart software is being developed to turn simple cameras into advanced systems.”

Signs to Lines TRO Mapping by AppyParking (United Kingdom)

ITSUP Hall
Signs to Lines Mapping is designed to create an accurate map of all the paint on the street related to traffic and parking management. These regulatory maps are required by law to be kept up to date by local authorities. The Signs to Lines mapping technology uses a combination of vehicle-mounted LiDAR scanners, photography, AI and machine learning.

CITIX 3D by Eco-Counter (Canada)

Stand 12.328
CITIX-3D is a wide-range counter designed to automatically count and differentiate between pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles simultaneously. It is the result of five years of research and development in partnership with a European research laboratory CEA.

Sprinx Traffic AID by Sprinx Technologies (Italy)

Stand 12.316
Based on 3D tracking technology, Sprinx Traffic AID can detect incidents and keep traffic on the move. It is designed to offer advantages over normal cameras by performing not just image capture, but also image analysis and event detection, turning a standard CCTV camera into a smart CCTV camera for professional traffic systems. The system runs on-board Hanwha Techwin WisenetX cameras

Safety

Jury chairman Peter van der Knaap, managing director, SWOV, Institute for Road Safety Research, said: “This year’s Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Award competition saw a high number of entries in the Safety category. Many constitute important improvements of existing products, whilst others could be labelled ‘cross-overs’ as they incorporate smart traffic elements. The nominees include a non-threatening, easy to operate radar device that can be used in community traffic safety efforts, a dynamic system to provide safe speeds for crossing pedestrians, and a next-generation LiDAR smart camera.”

SR-90 by Sernis Tecnologic Solutions (Portugal)

Stand 01.336
SR-90 is a system for physical speed reduction of vehicles in controlled speed zones, for instance in the vicinity of pedestrian crossings. It works with hardwired road studs with two levels of elevation from the soil and corresponding LED signals that are controlled electronically. The speed control measures are the result of an intelligent algorithm: the level of elevation and the LEDs colour will change accordingly to the speed that the car approaches the control area.

SpeedWatch+ by Traffic Technology (United Kingdom)
Developed to provide an additional educational element to the Traffic Technology Community SpeedWatch system, SpeedWatch+ wirelessly interfaces to the SpeedWatch device to warn drivers of their disregard of community road safety. Messages including ‘Mobile phone use!’, ‘Fasten seat belt!’, ‘Excess speed!’ provide a direct warning to violating drivers.

TrafficCam3D by Viion Systems (Canada)

Stand 07.322
TrafficCam3D is a LiDAR smart camera with on-board processing and telemetry for traffic safety and security applications. The camera-processed data can include vehicle classification, average speed and origin destination. 

Smart Mobility

Jury member Dr Ben Rutten, programme manager, strategic area smart mobility, Eindhoven University of Technology, said: “This year we had fewer entries in the smart mobility category compared to previous years. However, it is obvious that we see more smartness in traditional categories resulting in three nominees with excellent propositions in the field of parking and infrastructure. We have two in smart parking: a vertical integrated in-dash system; and a horizontal smartphone parking app with the potential for a huge number of installationss. The third nominee is a perfect smartphone-enabled application for smooth, green-light cycling while approaching signalled crossings.”

CrossCycle by Dynniq (The Netherlands)

Stand 08.524
The CrossCycle app identifies cyclists when they approach an intersection and gives them the green light more quickly. In addition to extending the green light for individual cyclists, the app also makes it possible to give priority to groups of cyclists. 

Find&Pay by EasyPark Group (Sweden)

Stand 02.312
The EasyPark Find&Pay app offers payment and turn-by-turn navigation directly to find available parking both on-street and off-street. The service is based on millions of data-points that together form an algorithm calculating the optimal route to find available parking as close as possible to your final destination.

On-Street Parking Info (OSPI) by ParkNow (Germany)

Stand 02.105
BMW’s new On-Street Parking Information (OSPI) feature and ParkNow’s in-dash payments are designed to make parking less stressful for drivers. OSPI forecasts space availability based on historic traffic flows, parking meter data and transactions from parking apps. Colour-coding on the navigation map shows the likelihood of finding a free spot. Payment is made directly in-dash via ParkNow.

Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Award 2018 jury

• Adam Hill, editor, ITS International (GB)
• Dr Peter van der Knaap (Chairman), managing director, SWOV, Institute for Road Safety Research (NL)
• Dr Ben Rutten, programme manager, strategic area smart mobility, Eindhoven University of Technology (NL)
• Tom Stone, editor, Traffic Technology International (GB)
• Jorrit Weerman, chief executive, Parking Network (NL)