Transport software technology company Flow Labs has announced that the infrastructure engineering software company Bentley Systems has made an investment in the company through Bentley iTwin Ventures to broaden the scope and reach of Flow Labs digital twin offerings.
The company says the investment will further enable its iTwin® Platform to span the entire engineering process from start to finish including planning, construction and now operations. Terms of the investment were not announced, but it’s known that Bentley iTwin Ventures is a $100 million (approx £80 million) corporate venture capital fund that fosters innovation by co-investing in startups and emerging companies that are strategically relevant to Bentley Systems’ objective of advancing infrastructure through going digital.
Flow Labs Founder and CEO Jatish Patel said, “At Flow Labs, our mission is to make transportation cleaner, clearer, and safer for everyone – right now. To solve such complex challenges, you can’t do it alone, and industry collaboration has been a core part of our philosophy. We couldn’t be more excited to have Bentley iTwin Ventures make a strategic investment in Flow Labs.”
Digital Twins have profound and growing implications on transportation cost and efficiency. They allow agencies to create exact replicas of real-world scenarios, enabling them to predict outcomes and test strategies without committing significant worker-hours or building costly infrastructure.
Patel, said the partnership will accelerate Digital Twin capability across the transportation space. “Bentley Systems is a pioneer in the Infrastructure Digital Twin space and through the integration of Bentley System’s iTwin® offerings with Flow Labs market leading Operational Digital Twin technologies, we will be providing the transportation agencies with a comprehensive solution allowing them to leverage Digital Twin technologies across the entire engineering life cycle from start to finish.”
Tom Kurke, Vice President, iTwin Ventures, Bentley Systems, said “We were impressed by the Flow Labs platform which leverages synthetic data sets generated from aggregated, cleaned and fused traffic sensor and connected car data, to optimize road conditions, starting with smart signaling.” Mr. Kurke continued, “Flow Labs looks to significantly reduce vehicle travel times, reduce emissions and make roads safer. We are excited to be going on this journey with Jatish and his team.”
In a statement, the companies say that as transportation infrastructure becomes more sophisticated, and with the approaching wave of connected and autonomous vehicles, predictive analytics are crucial to understanding and improving safety while helping eliminate congestion and emissions. From constructing infrastructure to managing and modifying traffic flow through data analytics, Digital Twins provide accurate and actionable information, and significant cost savings for agencies facing increased traffic and stagnant budgets.
Flow Labs says its AI-powered platform generates “the most accurate transportation data currently available”, analysing, monitoring and optimising traffic flows in seconds. It adds that in work with agencies, Flow Labs has demonstrated the ability to reduce crash risk by 51%, lower emissions by 21% and reduce travel times by 24% and that the company’s traffic operations Digital Twin capability is an essential component of that success.
(Picture – Bentley Systems)
