A group of Israeli smart mobility companies – at least a quarter of which have come from Technion – has collaborated with a consortium of other bodies to overhaul road transport
Twenty firms have joined up with government-transport bodies, local authorities, municipalities and universities to form a private-public consortium that will tackle traffic congestion, road accidents, infrastructure and air pollution across Israel, and at least five of them are the products of Technion alumni.
Nexar, Moovit, Waycare, NoTraffic, Cognata and Blue White Robotics are all part of the ISMLL consortium (Israel Smart Mobility Living Lab), which hopes to share anonymous data via third-party apps, traffic cameras, drones and road sensors to accelerate transport innovation. The world’s first autonomous traffic management platform also plans to install thermal road cameras that will help with poor vision and Bluetooth sensors that will help monitor public transport usage.
The aggregated data will both process and provide insights to make other changes, such as altering the timing of traffic lights and adding more buses and/or bus routes.
ISMLL – which is backed by a group of 10 government ministries and received a $1 million investment – was co-founded by Eran Shir, the co-founder and CEO of AI road safety company, Nexar – and also a Technion alumnus.
Traffic congestion is a major problem in Israel – both in terms of rate and cost – and was predicted to get much worse in a 2019 OECD report. According to the World Health Organization, road traffic injuries cause an estimated 1.35 million deaths annually – about one person every 25 seconds.