Source: Be-Mobile
The words Be-Mobile are presented with the letter O being drawn as a circle that represents a traffic roundabout
What are shockwave traffic jams?
On busy roads, traffic jams often occur in the form of waves. When one driver hits the brakes, other drivers behind them brake even harder and this causes so-called shockwave traffic jams, often producing major road congestions. Between 2014 and 2016, the province of North-Brabant in the Netherlands implemented a pre-commercial procurement to develop innovative solutions to address shockwave traffic jams on a busy Dutch highway, the A58 (see video about the PCP project by the procurer).
Leveraging PCP
In this pre-commercial procurement, Be-Mobile participated in a consortium together with Siemens. The PCP enabled Be-Mobile to develop and test an innovative solution that collects, combines and processes different types of raw traffic data . In turn, this enables road authorities to deliver intelligent traffic applications to end users. The solution integrates real-time traffic data from the road authorities themselves (e.g. from inductive loops, road cameras, traffic management centers), floating car data (GPS-data from vehicles driving on the road) and traffic data from other sources (e.g. data reported via social media, radio stations etc.). Based on these different trarric data sources, Be-Mobile sends speed and lane advice to drivers on the road. This increases driver safety and prevents traffic jams from growing ever larger.
The PCP helped Be-Mobile to further establish its name within the smart mobility industry, which marked the start of a magnificent growth story. For example, during the project, the company developed its patented data fusion technique combining floating car data and inductive loop data. This creates an exceptional view on traffic as both the speeds and the total number of vehicles are brought together. Later on, Be-Mobile won numerous commercial delivery contracts, including real-time traffic data solutions in the Netherlands (Talking Traffic procurement) and in Antwerp (Smart Ways to Antwerp).
Off to a flying start
In 2016, Be-Mobile was partially acquired by Proximus, the biggest telco operator in Belgium. The company expanded its business in over 30 countries and tripled its number of employees to 200. Today, Be-Mobile has become an all-round specialized smart mobility company offering a solution for every player in the mobility industry – from logistics companies, tolling operators, OEMs and government agencies to port authorities and parking operators. With its broad solution offering, Be-Mobile addresses the needs of public authorities, private businesses and individual travelers. A series of strategic acquisitions have made the company and portfolio grow. Currently, Be-Mobile is the mother company of Flitsmeister, 4411 and former companies FLOW and Mediamobile
“The shockwave traffic jam PCP enabled our company to make a leap in the quality of our innovations. The visionary role and demanding requirements of the public procurer pushed us to deliver faster and better quality data. In addition, the PCP encouraged us to position our product offering towards road management authorities. By adding floating car data, we offer a value-added service to road authorities. One concrete result of the PCP is that we setup a branch of our company in the Netherlands.”
Steven Logghe, Chief traffic and project leader shockwave traffic jam PCP, Be-Mobile
“Be-Mobile has good experience with bringing R&D projects to the market. Pre-Commercial Procurement offers a good approach to work together with other market parties. As the PCP was split in lots, it forced us to work together with vendors in other lots. Is it hard to work together with other competitors? My view on this is: if you have a product but you don’t have a competitor, then there is no market. It is good that the government hires different market parties to develop solutions in parallel. Only then, a market gets created. This pushes innovation forward."
Check the Be-Mobile website for more information: www.be-mobile.com