The increasing complexity of the mobility sector, limited realism in the planning of novel mobility concepts and a lack of social acceptance of potentially disruptive mobility offerings pose major challenges for the entire industry. Well-functioning mobility is not only one of the most important economic factors, but also plays a decisive role in shaping our private lives. This is just as true on a global scale as it is for each individual city. For metropolitan areas in particular, with their complex traffic situations, the question arises as to what the mobility of tomorrow will look like and how it can be intelligently designed.
The networking of autonomously driving cars, public transportation and other means of transport is a major challenge that is being addressed by numerous researchers, transportation policymakers, municipalities and companies.
This is exactly where VirtualCity@FMS comes in: Through this tool, traffic situations and infrastructural sections can be both simulated and evaluated. Based on GIS data and an in-house algorithm, any traffic infrastructure can be visualized within minutes using plug-and-play technology. The resulting three-dimensional representation is based on the Unity game engine.
WHAT IS VIRTUALCITY@FMS?
VirtualCity@FMS is a holistic software solution: visualization platform and independent simulation solution at the same time.
Using this software tool, different traffic scenarios can be simulated and visually illustrated on the basis of an algorithm developed in-house - starting with a panoramic flight over a city as an introduction to a complex of topics, through to detailed use cases of different traffic modes at individual traffic junctions. The basis is a large data pool that focuses on roads, but also includes the respective building structure. If, for example, a new road is built and connected to the other traffic routes, the tool can be used to show how the flows of vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians will look.
OUR GOALS
FMS GmbH sees itself as a partner for the mobility of the future. With VirtualCity@FMS, we would like to make our contribution to optimizing existing transport ecosystems, expanding them to include contemporary mobility concepts and making them integrative and future-proof with the help of innovative digital methods. Together with transport companies, public institutions, private-sector mobility providers and direct involvement of society. With our tool, ideas and proposals for transportation planning can be implemented visually and the effects of specific decisions can be understood. In principle, almost countless scenarios, infrastructures and mobility concepts are conceivable that can be planned and implemented with our software.
HOW DOES VIRTUALCITY@FMS WORK?
As a basis for our tool, we use data from geographic information systems (GIS data) and our own algorithms. With the help of a plug-and-play technology, any infrastructure sections can be represented in this way in a very short time faithfully as a visual image - based on the Unity game engine - in three dimensions.
This can be a panoramic view over a city from the perspective of a helicopter, but also a very concrete and detailed view of specific nodes with very specific application scenarios. VirtualCity@FMS enables a realistic representation of current as well as future situations.
The built-in interfaces also allow a wide variety of sources to be integrated, for example the static data from OpenStreetMap, CityGML or OpenDrive, but also dynamic data feeds such as SUMO. In the future, the use of artificial intelligence is planned to enable the VirtualCity@FMS to predict traffic situations itself and to propose its own solutions.
TRAFFIC SIMULATION WITH AWARD
The VirtualCity@FMS was awarded the emove360° Award (p.10-11) in the category 'Mobility Concepts' in 2019. Also at the German Mobility Award 2020, which was held under the annual motto "Intelligent unterwegs: Gemeinsam. Networked. Mobil.", we were among the ten winners with our tool. We prevailed over more than 300 competitors and were personally honored by the Federal Minister of Transport, Andreas Scheuer.
This award is also a challenge to further develop and improve our tool. Autonomous, connected vehicles are at the heart of Future Mobility. But transportation policymakers and urban planners need to think about this today and plan ahead. What is required are new local transport concepts, answers to environmental pollution, a secure energy supply, and urban developments in general, which must also be communicated transparently in order to achieve broad acceptance among the population.
Image credit : © metamorworks #116604161 - Adobe Stock
