Skip to main content

Siemens launches Mobility IDEA contest

Siemens Road and City Mobility announced the launch of its Mobility IDEA (Improving Design and Engineering for All) contest, an initiative to find innovative ideas to help solve five of the toughest challenges facing the traffic industry. Contest winners will be invited to participate in a product prototyping workshop with Siemens technology experts. Siemens will also reward the top three universities by number of submissions with a traffic control software grant worth US$150,000 to help train future traffi
September 4, 2014 Read time: 2 mins

189 Siemens Road and City Mobility announced the launch of its Mobility IDEA (Improving Design and Engineering for All) contest, an initiative to find innovative ideas to help solve five of the toughest challenges facing the traffic industry. Contest winners will be invited to participate in a product prototyping workshop with Siemens technology experts. Siemens will also reward the top three universities by number of submissions with a traffic control software grant worth US$150,000 to help train future traffic engineers.

Using the IDEA contest website, powered by Mindjet’s SpigitEngage platform, members of the general public, including university students, will be asked to submit ideas for one of five scenarios that address a specific challenge faced by the traffic industry.

“According to recent statistics compiled by Nationwide Insurance, the average urban commuter is stuck in traffic an estimated 34 hours every year and we waste 1.9 billion gallons of fuel. The only way we’ll see a significant reduction in congestion and fuel consumption is to develop technologies that make our traffic systems more efficient,” said Ben Collar, head of US Research & Development for Siemens Road and City Mobility.

“Innovation is Siemens lifeblood, but we also understand that sometimes the best ideas don’t always happen inside our own walls. Technology is best cultivated when we can gather ideas from the bright minds of today and encourage the brilliant engineers of tomorrow to help improve our traffic systems with intelligent software.”

The contest will be open from 3 September to 16 November, with finalists announced on 12 December. Ideas can be submitted through the IDEA Contest website, where users can contribute new ideas, improve on current submissions by incorporating live feedback, comment and vote on other submissions, and use social media to share ideas. Once the contest has closed, submissions will be evaluated by a jury of traffic industry experts and winners will be notified directly. All submissions are eligible for top prizes.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • TM 2.0 boost TMC data feed and driver influence
    November 15, 2017
    TM 2.0 views connected vehicles and V2I as two-way communications channels, benefitting traffic management and drivers, as Alan Dron discovers. As connected vehicles are progressively rolled out there will come a point at which traffic managers and traffic management centres (TMCs) will have to gear up to cope with a rapidly-evolving road scenario. The TM 2.0 Platform (see box) is promoting a concept of new-generation traffic management (which carries the same TM 2.0 title) and is studying how future T
  • Need for simpler urban tolling solutions
    January 10, 2013
    A common assumption, even amongst informed observers, is that there’s but a handful of urban charging schemes in operation around the world and scant prospect of that changing any time soon. Larger city-sized schemes such as Singapore, London and Stockholm come readily to mind but if we take a wider view and also consider urban access control and Low Emission Zones (LEZs) then the picture changes rather radically. There is a notable concentration of such schemes in Europe but worldwide the number is comfort
  • Winners of ITS Australia awards announced
    November 29, 2012
    Nominations reflecting world's best practice in the intelligent transport systems (ITS) industry were winners at the third ITS Australia awards presentation ceremony in Melbourne. ITS Australia President and Chair of the Awards Judging Panel Brian Negus said that the entries in Australia's awards program would perform well in any competition around the world. "After attending the ITS World Congress last month and seeing and hearing countless best practice case studies, we are confident that winners of our l
  • Students honored by ITS America
    May 22, 2012
    On Tuesday ITS America honored the winners of its annual student essay competition sponsored by Southwest Research Institute. The winning essay authored by James Wong from the Georgia Institute of Technology investigates the integration challenges presented by real-time traveler information. Multi-modal transportation has always been a passion of Wong who hopes to one day head a public agency.