„And the innovation award 2024 goes to…”
At the end of this year's innovation contest by the City of Munich, the award ceremony took place at the Munich Urban Colab on July 23, 2024.
„The cool side of Munich – Routing for footpaths in the shade“
The GeodataService, Department of Communal Services, organized the challenge with the topic “The cool side of Munich - routing for footpaths in the shade”.
Given the rising temperatures in the summer months, the Munich city administration has the responsibility of protecting pedestrians in Munich from the health risks posed by heat. Since redesigning public spaces with better pedestrian heat protection with construction measures is very complex and costly, the City of Munich is looking for suitable alternatives.
One possibility is by using smart routing to optimize pedestrian routes so that people can move through the city on shady and cool paths. In addition to the shadows cast by buildings, structures and vegetation depending on the time of day and season, the cooling effect of green spaces also plays a fundamental role. The ability to take construction sites in real time and individual preferences such as accessibility and suitable points of interest (POIs) such as drinking fountains or public toilets into account would represent further added value. The Digital Twin Munich contains the necessary information for all these issues as a joint effort by the entire city family. With its 3D city model and other integrated data, it particularly offers an excellent data basis for a smart and intuitive solution to better protect vulnerable groups.
The winner: SE3 Labs
In the end, the start-up SE3 Labs GmbH was able to beat the other finalists by a close call. SE3 Labs' idea is based on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to make the data of the Digital Twin Munich easily accessible with a smart voice assistant in the project proposal “SpatialGPT Urban Shade Guide”. This AI-supported voice entry uses a Large Language Model to interact with the system through natural language and thus allows barrier-free access for pedestrians to navigate along cool routes. In addition to the realtime analysis of the shadows cast by buildings and vegetation, other data sets from the Digital Twin Munich, such as construction sites or drinking water dispensers, can also be flexibly integrated. SE3 Labs also plans to use AI-supported derivation of other relevant parameters, such as the radiation behavior of the environment, from the data of the Digital Twin Munich.
The decision for the most promising solution and for the winning team was very close, as all finalists submitted applications of the highest quality.
The jury was particularly impressed by the innovative use of the data of the Digital Twin Munich, the user-friendly and barrier-free control using an AI-supported voice assistant and the high degree of flexibility in the proposed solution, making SE3 Labs the worthy winner.
Dealing with rising temperatures is an increasingly important issue. We are particularly pleased that we can contribute to protecting Munich's residents with a digital solution.
What’s next?
After the summer break, the winners of the “The cool side of Munich” challenge will further develop their proposed solutions and test them in practice in collaboration with the GeodataService team, Department of Communal Services, and the experts from the Heat Protection Team, Health Department. For the co-creation phase, one of the ongoing district projects which is already implementing other innovative solutions for heat protection or rather testing them in corresponding model projects will be used as a technical basis: The project area of „Creating NEBourhoods Together – Neuperlach” and the model project „Munich - healthy on site“ in Moosach are planned for this purpose.
We congratulate the winning team from SE3 Labs and look forward to the co-creation phase!
An article of:
Korbinian Kringer
GeodataService Munich, City of Munich