52°North Spatial Information Research GmbH

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Atrai Bikes

Atrai Bikes

Riding with the senseBox:bike in a Data-Driven Bicycle City

Transforming bike commuting by providing real-time data insights

The Atrai Bikes project aims to support urban planning by involving citizens, businesses and local governments in the systematic collection and analysis of bicycle infrastructure data. The two-year project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the São Paulo Research Foundation, FAPESP in Brazil, is a joint effort of three organizations: re:edu and 52°North in Münster, Germany, and the Cordial Institute in São Paulo, Brazil.

A key component of the project’s objectives is the integration of hardware technology from the open source senseBox:bike project, which is seamlessly connected to a dedicated app and a web-based analysis platform. This infrastructure enables the effortless collection of important data during daily bike rides and provides insights into parameters such as distance to car traffic, vibration levels, temperature fluctuations and particulate matter concentrations. These insights are invaluable to various stakeholders and provide a comprehensive understanding of the urban cycling experience.

The data collected is carefully stored and visualized using the openSenseMap solution, an open data platform enhanced with a web-based analysis component with GeoAI tools. This technology not only enables cyclists to make informed decisions about their routes, but also allows businesses to optimize logistics and governments to improve cycling infrastructure and understand cycling flows.

A robust citizen science approach complements this technological innovation. Workshops will be held in both Münster and São Paulo to engage participants, deepen their connection to the project and strengthen their skills and motivation. This joint effort promises not only to enrich the user experience, but also to advance the sophistication of the software analyses, bringing significant advances to urban cycling environments.

Atrai Bike proejct
senseBox:bike mounted at a bike in Brazil to collect environmental and safety data while riding the bike (image by Mario Pesch).

Partners

Reedu GmbH & Co. KG , Germany

Instituto Cordial, Brazil

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Map Data Analysis

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Map Data Analysis

Data Analysis for Automated Driving

The analysis toolbox will help Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles provide data for their Automated Driving Systems.

The Operational Design Domain describes the constraints under which a driving automation system is designed to operate. This includes environmental and geographic information as well as the required presence or absence of certain traffic or roadway characteristics. At Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, a dedicated team defines such boundary conditions for the development and testing process. This allows the team to evaluate potential service areas for Mobility as a Service applications. Based on our expertise in geospatial data analysis and efficient processing of large volumes of geodata, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles contracted 52°North to develop a toolbox that enables the automatic derivation of these characteristics from available spatial datasets.

The content-rich road network data provided by Open Street Map builds the foundation for the analysis toolbox. It enables the derivation of basic properties such as the distribution of road types and street fruniture, speed limits or number of lanes for a given area of interest. The toolbox will also support complex analysis capabilities, such as statistics on curve radius, the intersection impact angle, or intersection complexity. The system combines two different analysis concepts:

  • Basic analysis using the Overpass Turbo API
  • Complex statistics using the Python library osmnx in combination with a PostGIS database

During 2023, the team focused on more complex analysis. Important parameters such as the visibility range of certain roads, the incident angle of roads meeting at an intersection, or the minimum curve radius were derived. Our team integrated all analysis features into one executable toolbox. It can be used from the command line, but is already prepared to run as a service in a larger deployment environment.

VW Data Analysis
Two visualizations, visibility range and curve radius, of derived statistics.

Customer

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Germany

Deutsche Bahn Sensor Data Framework

Deutsche Bahn Sensor Data Framework

Interoperable integration of sensor data to improve the railway operation

52°North supported the Deutsche Bahn AG in setting up a framework for managing various weather-related sensor data. Important goals were the integration of sensor data from different sources into a central data repository. From there, the data is available for various applications, such as the integration into weather models and warning workflows in case of critical weather events.

Sensordata Framework
Draft of the sensor data framework architecture (Authors: Christoph Effing, Claudio Vindimian, Vivien Müller)

The project involved on-site and virtual workshops with Deutsche Bahn to discuss requirements, solutions and implementations. The kick-off was an on-site workshop to understand the technical challenges and to introduce Deutsche Bahn staff to relevant technologies from the Geo-IT community. Different approaches for data modeling and implementation were discussed. Furthermore, we discussed and evaluated the use of the OGC SensorThings API standard. This included support for the implementation of first OGC SensorThings API-based data flows.

Customer

Deutsche Bahn AG, Germany

Volkswagen Road Network Analysis

Volkswagen Road Network Analysis

Data Analysis for Assisted Driving

The analysis toolbox will help Volkswagen consistently assess service area candidates for assisted driving cars.

The Operational Design Domains for Self Driving Systems working group at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is responsible for evaluating potential service areas for automated driving vehicles. The Operational Design Domain describes, not only information on weather and traffic, but also characteristics of the underlying road network. Due to our expertise in geospatial data analysis and efficient processing of high volume geodata, Volkswagen contracted 52°North to develop a toolbox that enables the automatic derivation of these characteristics from available spatial datasets.

The highly detailed road network data offered by Open Street Map builds the foundation for the analysis toolbox. It enables the derivation of basic properties, such as the distribution of road types, speed limit or number of driving lanes for a given area of interest.
The toolbox will support complex analysis capabilities, such as statistics on curve radius, the impact angle of junctions or road slopes as well. The system reconciles two different analysis concepts:

  • basic analysis using the Overpass Turbo API
  • complex statistics using the Python library osmnx in combination with a PostGIS database

The outcome of the project is a Python toolbox that enables the Volkswagen team to automatically derive statistics for worldwide service area candidates.

Volkswagen Road Network Analysis
OSM’s Overpass Turbo API.

Customer

Volkswagen, Germany