Siemens Mobility project uses rerouting to improve air quality in Munich

Up to 40% of drivers are willing to help reduce air pollution when provided with alternative routes on ThinxNet’s Ryd platform, says Siemens Mobility. The partners worked with air quality specialist Hawa Dawa in a four-week project in Munich to prove that intelligent traffic control can help cities become more sustainable. Siemens says initial results for more than 1,600 drivers in the German city showed savings of 83 kg of carbon dioxide and 114 g of nitrogen oxide as well as a reduction of 633km driven
February 25, 2019 Read time: 2 mins
Up to 40% of drivers are willing to help reduce air pollution when provided with alternative routes on ThinxNet’s Ryd platform, says 120 Siemens Mobility.


The partners worked with air quality specialist Hawa Dawa in a four-week project in Munich to prove that intelligent traffic control can help cities become more sustainable.

Siemens says initial results for more than 1,600 drivers in the German city showed savings of 83 kg of carbon dioxide and 114 g of nitrogen oxide as well as a reduction of 633km driven.

If the programme were to be scaled to 20,000 drivers, the savings would be the equivalent to planting more than one acre of forested land, the company suggests.

Hawa provided pollution forecasts to Siemens’ ITS digital lab in Munich, where data scientists and traffic management experts analysed the data with anonymised trip data from the smart car platform Ryd to predict individual routes and suggest ‘green’ alternatives. These routes were then provided to Ryd users via an app before they started their journeys.

Ryd users can use the app to receive information on car’s health such as fuel consumption, battery life and fuel in level in the engine.  

Drivers were incentivised to use alternative routes by participating in a competition in which they received Amazon vouchers.

Michael Peter, CEO of Siemens Mobility, says shaping connected mobility will improve the efficiency of transportation and its impact on the environment.

Karim Tarraf, Hawa Dawa’s CEO, says: “We believe eco-routing at the individual vehicle level has extremely high potential as a policy option in tackling unacceptable levels of traffic-related air pollution in cities.”

Related Content

  • Trains and no planes or automobiles
    August 3, 2021
    Moves are afoot in France and Germany for legislation to prioritise rail over air travel. Iomob’s Boyd Cohen suggests that Mobility as a Service can help to support this shift
    Read More
  • Truck platooning trials take to the highways
    July 24, 2017
    There is rising enthusiasm in America and beyond for the concept of truck platooning with trials being planned in several US states, as David Crawford reports. Growing numbers of US states are considering or implementing plans for trials of electronically-linked truck platooning on public road networks. This is in response to the interest being shown by the US$70bn a year road freight industry, where fuel represents 41% of the operating costs making the prospect of improving fuel economy by trucks travellin
    Read More
  • Truck platooning trials take to the highways
    July 24, 2017
    There is rising enthusiasm in America and beyond for the concept of truck platooning with trials being planned in several US states, as David Crawford reports. Growing numbers of US states are considering or implementing plans for trials of electronically-linked truck platooning on public road networks. This is in response to the interest being shown by the US$70bn a year road freight industry, where fuel represents 41% of the operating costs making the prospect of improving fuel economy by trucks travellin
    Read More
  • Autumn budget: EV charging infrastructure fund and higher tax rates for diesel vehicles
    November 23, 2017
    Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond has announced a £400m ($532m) charging infrastructure fund for electric vehicles (EVs), an extra £100m ($133m) investment in Plug-In-Car Grant, and a £40m ($53m) in charging R&D in the UK’s Autumn Budget 2017. He added that laws need to be clarified so that motorists who charge their EVs at work will not face a benefit-in-kind charge from next year.
    Read More

Highlighted Content