Today an international jury of transportation experts announced the final shortlist of nominees of the prestigious Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Award. Out of well over 60 high-quality entries the field has been narrowed down, after careful analysis and intense consideration, to the final 15 – leaving three nominees in each of the five categories: Infrastructure, Traffic Management, Safety, Parking, and Smart Mobility. Each nominee is now in the running to potentially win their category and just one category winner will ultimately be chosen as this year’s overall winner. The final winners will be announced at the opening ceremony of Intertraffic Amsterdam, the world’s largest trade event for the infrastructure, traffic management, safety, parking and smart mobility sectors, taking place from 20-23 March 2018, at RAI Amsterdam.

Shortlisted companies in the category Infrastructure:

FlexyLight Bollard by Saedi (Italy) – Stand 05.337

The pioneering design of FlexyLight Bollard combines the advantages of different kinds of bollards to create an innovative infrastructure  solution. 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 and it is removable in under 20 seconds. The bollard can be used in places such as bus stations, turnings and parking garages.

Asura Recognition Unit by Asura (Hungary) – Stand 11.107

ARU is a newly developed plug & play solution enabling high accuracy licence plate recognition (LPR) in any existing or new visual data collection system. ARU is camera-independent, works with any IP camera and delivers high recognition rates with its sophisticated validation algorithms making the system very effective. ARU stores and pushes LPR results to any business application in either MySQL, XML or CSV format.

OptiWIM by Cross Zlín (Czech Republic) – Stand 10.111

Weigh-in-motion (WIM) is an important technology for protecting infrastructure from excess wear and tear from overweight vehicles. The new OptiWIM sensor combines several world firsts: free-flow capable, accurate to 3% (even in free-flow), temperature compensated, RF immune. A single sensor row detects: vehicle width, double-tyre, tyre pressure. Non-invasive maintenance and replacement assures a 10-year lifetime and low total cost of ownership.

Jury comments:

“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.” Adam Hill, Editor - ITS International Magazine

Shortlisted companies in the category Parking:

Self-powered Parking Sensor by ParkHere (Germany) – Stand 07.410

Parking sensors register whether a car is parked in a spot. This is the first parking sensor that doesn’t need any kind of external supply. It uses kinetic energy-harvesting to produce the energy it needs to send a signal to the base station which forwards the data to a cloud server. This solves the most pressing issue for parking sensors: power. Furthermore, the possibility to inform drivers of the size of a parking space on-street meets the current demands of cities to optimize the available space for different car sizes.

The Urban Mobility Control Management Hub (Paris) by ParkNow, Parkmobile Group (Germany) – Stand 02.105

ParkNow has delivered an integrated parking ecosystem for Paris with its new urban mobility control management and parking system. The total digitisation of parking combines cashless apps, parking meters, permits and enforcement data to optimise traffic flow. It processes penalties, and helps reduce emissions during ‘Pollution Days’ via dynamic pricing. A unified on-demand dashboard provides hands-on control for a real smart city.

Imapark by Sernis Technologic Solutions (Portugal) – Stand 01.336

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

Jury comments:

“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, for cities that meet the demands of the 21st century.” Jorrit Weerman, CEO - Parking Network

Shortlisted companies in the category Traffic Management:

Sprinx Traffic AID by Sprinx Technologies (Italy) – Stand 12.3167

Based on the innovative 3D tracking technology, Sprinx Traffic AID running on-board Hanwha Techwin WisenetX cameras has significantly enhanced the ability to detect incidents and keep traffic on the move. It offers distinctive 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.

CITIX 3D by Eco-Counter (Canada) – Stand 12.328

CITIX-3D, Eco-Counter’s latest innovation, is a wide-range counter capable of automatically counting and differentiating pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles simultaneously. Its unique technology is the result of five years of research and development in partnership with a top European Research Lab (CEA).

Signs to Lines TRO Mapping by AppyParking (United Kingdom) – ITSUP Hall

Signs to Lines Mapping is the latest technology that creates the world’s most 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 state of the art vehicle mounted LiDAR scanners, photography, A.I. and machine learning.

Jury comments:

“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.” Tom Stone, Editor - Traffic Technology International magazine

Shortlisted companies in the category Safety:

TrafficCam3D by Viion Systems (Canada) – Stand 07.322

TrafficCam3D is a revolutionary 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. TrafficCam3D constitutes a critical component of safe and ’smart’ cities and highways, delivering actionable intelligence as well as video-camera functionality from a single fully-integrated, low cost platform.

SR-90 by Sernis Technologic Solutions (Portugal) – Stand 01.336

SR-90 is an intelligent 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 which 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 Ltd (United Kingdom)

Newly 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.

Jury comments:

“This year's Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Award competition saw a very 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.” Jury chairman Peter van der Knaap, Managing Director - SWOV, Institute for Road Safety Research

Shortlisted companies in the category Smart Mobility:

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 solve parking pain 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.

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 is the first of its kind in the world to offer payment and turn-by-turn navigation directly to find available parking, on as well as 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.

Jury comments:

“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 3 nominees with excellent propositions in the field of parking and infrastructure. We have 2 in smart parking, one vertical integrated in-dash, excellent safe HMI and one horizontal parking app installed on smart phone and therefore huge number of installs potential. The third nominee is a perfect application for smart phone enabled smooth green light cycling while approaching signalled crossings.” Dr. Ir. B.J.C.M. (Ben) Rutten, Program Manager – Strategic Area Smart Mobility, Eindhoven University of Technology

The Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Award 2018 jury:

• Dr. Peter van der Knaap (Chairman of the Jury), Managing Director - SWOV, Institute for Road Safety Research (NL)
• Adam Hill, Editor - ITS International, Route One Publishing Ltd (GB)
• Jorrit Weerman, CEO - Parking Network (NL)
• Tom Stone, Editor - Traffic Technology International, UKi Media & Events Ltd (GB)
• Dr. Ir. B.J.C.M. (Ben) Rutten, Program Manager - Strategic Area Smart Mobility Eindhoven University of Technology (NL)

AMREF Flying Doctors

The world of traffic and transportation is always evolving and looking for new opportunities. Innovations are crucial to this, which is why Intertraffic supports them via the Innovation Award. We are also committed to improving a wider world, and are therefore donating the Innovation Award registration fee to AMREF Flying Doctors.

About Intertraffic Worldwide Events

Since the launch of its Amsterdam event in 1972, the Intertraffic name has become synonymous with the leading global industry platforms for smart mobility, infrastructure, traffic management, road safety, and parking. Intertraffic events are staged in the Netherlands, Turkey, China, Mexico and Indonesia, offering comprehensive overviews of the very latest products, services and total solutions offered by suppliers, while also showcasing innovative industry-wide trends and developments. Intertraffic is intended for policymakers, specialists and operational personnel from government authorities, engineering consultancies, and the industry at large. More information is available on www.intertraffic.com. The Intertraffic brand is part of the event portfolio of RAI Amsterdam.