Skip to main content

PTV opens software to Ukraine aid

Firm is giving free route planning expertise to humanitarian convoys after Russia invasion
By Adam Hill March 9, 2022 Read time: 3 mins
Haas; 'As PTV we have very strong values, you know, like fairness, diversity - and obviously, freedom' (© Steve Allen | Dreamstime.com)

PTV Group has opened up its software products for free to organisations which are planning routes to deliver convoys of humanitarian aid - or transport of refugees - to and from Ukraine, following the country's invasion by Russia.

"One of the obvious things we can do with our product portfolio, and the services we generally deliver to customers in the logistics piece, is around route optimisation and route planning," the company's CEO Christian Haas told ITS International.

"To give you an example: if you want to supply goods to five different locations, that already results in about 120 different solutions and possible routes to take - and I think our tools are perfect in order to help those people in those situations. So we very quickly made the decision that we give the software and the services - because it does require some services around it as well - for free to those organisations and actually we already had quite a few asking for help and starting to use it."

PTV has created a landing page for organisations which are interested in using its software and has formed a task force at its head office in Karlsruhe, Germany, to concentrate on handling requests. The company has not yet revealed who has taken up the offer.

"In a nutshell, the software helps to distribute goods in the best possible way among the available vehicles," Haas continues. "Many of those organisations have plenty of vehicles, so we can perform milk runs for the consolidation of goods - and then we obviously optimise those routes for the trucks and that saves time and kilometres as well."

There is also a service element to PTV's free offer, giving expertise along with the software. "If it's too difficult to implement the software quickly, or they can't do it for whatever reason, then we just help them - basically, by them telling us what they want to do and we do it for them in our software and just pass the results over to them."

Haas emphasises that PTV is not a political organisation. However, he adds: "But I, as Christian Haas, have a very strong opinion and generally as PTV we have very strong values, you know, like fairness, diversity - and obviously, freedom. And I do think that as a chief executive officer, that also means that you have to stand with your opinion. And if you have a strong opinion and you can take some influence - it's very tiny, obviously - but then you have to do it, especially in situations like that."

PTV will be involved "as long as we need to", he concludes.

 

Related Content

  • January 23, 2012
    Changing roles in data collection for traffic management
    Transport for Greater Manchester's David Hytch discusses the evolving roles of the public and private sector in managing and disseminating data. Data services for traffic management were once the sole preserve of public sector organisations, they being uniquely placed and equipped for the work involved. Now, though, this is changing. There is even a presumption in some countries that the private sector will take a greater, if not actually a lead, role in the provision of information for transport management
  • March 1, 2023
    “For a city to be loveable, the car has to be a guest”: EmpowerWISM winner Kari Anne Solfjeld Eid
    Kari Anne Solfjeld Eid, founder of e-cargo bike subscription service Whee!, has won the Empower Women in Shared Mobility 2023 programme. She tells Adam Hill how to make cities loveable…
  • November 7, 2012
    Europe's electronic toll service closer to operational reality
    After much debate and delay, a unifying European Electronic Toll Service is now finally on the horizon, says ASFiNAG’s Klaus Schierhackl. Here, he talks with Jason Barnes about what that might mean. Aworkable European Electronic Toll Service (EETS) which will allow truck drivers to travel across the continent and pay tolls using a single account and OnBoard Unit (OBU) was originally timetabled to be in place and operating by October of this year. A lack of urgency from some of the stakeholders involved in t
  • July 31, 2012
    Future of US cooperative infrastructure networks
    Peter H. Appel, the new Administrator of the USDOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration, on his vision of the US's future cooperative infrastructure networks. Peter H. Appel comes to the post of Administrator of the US Department of Transportation's Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) from a background in transportation-related work which stretches back over 20 years. Most recently with management consultancy A. T. Kearney, Inc., where he focused on busin