Initial Situation

Mobility services such as car sharing or routing are widely available for end users and large businesses. From mobile applications for intermodal traveling to corporate car sharing concepts, a large variety of solutions is offered. However, these solutions are often not suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). On the one hand, services for end users do not fulfill the companies’ requirements in terms of reliability or cannot be integrated in the business processes. Services for large businesses, on the other hand, often require economies of scale which cannot be realized in SMEs due to their size.

Project Aim

The project aim is to develop a platform that enables integrated mobility services for SMEs. Based on location data, traffic data and operating data, a crowdsourcing approach ensures decentralized, flexible and up-to-date mobility services. With the help of these services, SMEs can improve their intra-urban logistic processes.

Realization

To achieve the project aim, a platform is developed that integrates data from different project partners, applies scalable data mining methods to process the data and makes the processed data available for mobile applications. Additionally, several exemplary mobile applications show how SMEs can improve their logistics with the help of the data hosted on the platform. The platform and the mobile services are deployed in a field test in the city of Dresden.

The project is implemented in three successive iterations, each of them refining and improving the project results. The first iterations produces a first deployable version of the crowdsourcing platform and the exemplary mobile applications. In the second and third implementation, the platform is improved, integrating the feedback from the field tests. Each iteration includes three phases: concept, development and evaluation phase. Throughout the whole project, a continuous communication phase ensures that all relevant stakeholders are informed of the realized project results.

Work Packages:

• Identification of users’ needs and scenario development
• Concept development for a crowdsourcing platform that enables self-organized city logistics
• Scalable data mining and data management on the crowdsourcing platform
• Buildup and management of a community on the crowdsourcing platform
• Development and deployment of mobile applications
• Field tests to evaluate the concept and the platform
• Project management, transfer and consolidation

Value

The project shows how heterogeneous data sources can be aggregated and integrated on a platform to enable data-driven services – it transforms big data into smart data. The platform’s architecture with its interfaces and governance mechanisms makes it easy to integrated service providers, business customers, end users and public administration. The whole ecosystem can therefore benefit from the data which is hosted on the platform and continuously generate more data. The developed data management technologies as well as the platform architecture create value that goes beyond the project ExCELL. Via a reference model, the platform can be deployed in other cities or regions and adapted to data-driven contexts other than mobility.

Results

The results of the project have been published as an edited volume (in German): "Management digitaler Plattformen"