The roadscape technology company Gaist says it’s set to play a central role in the next wave of intelligent mobility developments, following a collaboration with the world-leading testbed, the Smart Mobility Living Lab.
The SMLL is to integrate Gaist’s Roads as a Service (“RaaS”) providing a number rich datasets and insight into its lab testbed:
Gaist are supporting the 24km stretch of road network used to trial mobility technologies by supplying highly detailed carriageway and footway condition surveys combined with a full roadscape asset inventory. All of this is supported by Gaist HighwayView and 360 degree HD Imagery. Alongside this, Gaist have London wide data sets of dynamic road condition data and aligned 360 HD imagery, covering 14,000km of every road with the capital which will be available in the lab.
The testbed, in East London, is the most advanced of its kind. It is used by private and public sector organisations to answer crucial questions about their innovations, such as ‘is it safe enough?’ and ‘how will this service interface with existing transport services?’ and to demonstrate and evaluate their performance, safety and environmental impact.
Developed by TRL with partners from government and industry, the lab is currently being used as a centre to plan and deliver real-world user trials of Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) technologies and to support the accelerated training of AI systems.
The tie-up – the latest in a series of global partnerships unveiled by Gaist – sees Gaist join an elite club of forward-thinking businesses and academic institutions. SMLL members include Honda, Aviva, Nissan, Cisco and Telefonica.
Andrew Loveless, CRO at Gaist, said, “The Highway is at the heart of many UK Government policies and initiatives providing the physical linkages for commerce, mobility and regeneration. Gaist and the Smart Mobility Living Lab have a shared vision of providing data at scale, to power a national digital Road as a Service “RaaS” allowing aggregated data sets to be provided to a broad set of stakeholders including CAV, transport, local authorities and central government. Today from the lab Gaist can show road condition as experienced by motorists on every road in London dynamically updated to enable the planning of journeys by the safest route.”
Lucien Linders, General Manager at the Smart Mobility Living Lab, said: “We are excited to welcome Gaist as our latest member to provide the opportunity to actively engage with the rapidly developing and exciting mobility eco-system. It further strengthens our community and shows that more and more companies believe that a collaborative, fostering environment will help and guide them to successful development and deployment of future mobility products and services.”
New technologies, shifts in urban movement following the pandemic and the need to accelerate efforts to achieve the carbon net zero 2050 target are contributing to significant disruption in the mobility sector.
Rigorous trials and evidence-based predictions using detailed, reliable data are critical in supporting policy changes and fuelling confident decision-making.
Launched earlier this year, the Gaist Global Partnership Programme is seeing Gaist forge relationships with organisations across the mapping, mobility and asset management sectors.
By layering its rich datasets about the road and roadscape with high-quality data from partner organisations, Gaist says it can further enrich the industry-leading intelligence it provides to its global customer base and build the UK’s capability and insights around mobility.
(Picture – Gaist)
