UK firm Alchera Technologies is deploying an AI-powered data hub in Nottingham to improve the efficiency of the road network by pinpointing where interventions or policy changes should be implemented.

Nottingham City Council selected Alchera’s platform to support the delivery of its £16.2m Department for Transport (DfT) funded Future Transport Zone programme.

Alchera’s cloud-based platform provides real-time data on the movement of vehicles and pedestrians around cities and major infrastructure by using the existing city sensors and camera networks, enabling granular real-time data to support smart city applications.

The deployment of Alchera’s AI-powered data hub is part of a city-wide initiative to introduce technologies aimed at improving journey times for traffic and non-motorised users of the city’s roads, building on a prototype previously developed with the University of Nottingham (www.nottingham.ac.uk).

The data hub will create a single source of truth, ingesting the city’s sources of transport data, including fixed sensors, EV charging points, bus and train schedules, and air quality sensors. Fusing disparate data sources should create a holistic picture of the transport network taking account for all travel modes, while supporting centralised storage of current and historic data to provide trend analysis over time.

Through seamless integration with existing systems and workflows, automated reporting coupled with deep data quality monitoring and data infilling will provide council staff with the ability to self-serve the data required to make informed decisions on transport policy, unlocking resources within the council to focus on further high value use cases for the broad sets of data within the platform.

A supporting public facing web site for interested local citizens and businesses will also democratise access to Nottingham City Council’s data, empowering citizens to engage with the council in new ways. Effective use of data is expected to deliver targeted investments that will lead to a faster, more reliable transport network generating fewer carbon emissions.

“Once completed, the data hub will provide a unique capability with respect to ingesting and managing real time data enabling a sea change in the ability to provide complex data insights in a speedy and easily accessible way,” said Simon Dale, technical expert at Nottingham City Council (www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk). “This will increase productivity from our data sources by making them more accessible to policy and decision makers thus ensuring that we maximise the benefit of the new generation of real-time data sources for citizens.”

Matt Pick, head of business development at Alchera (www.alcheratechnologies.com), added: “We’re delighted to be working with Nottingham City Council, whose ambition was evident from the outset. The Future Transport Zone creates a unique opportunity for a pathfinder project which will be a flagbearer for how transport data can be effectively used by local authorities across the country. Our selection is testament to Alchera’s proven capability in bringing together complex datasets and turning them into meaningful insight.”