A Unique Living Lab Environment In Tampere For Urban Transport

Business Finland is funding Tampereen Raitiotie Oy’s Lyyli Living Lab development environment through the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) funding program, which is part of the Sustainable Growth Program for Finland. Lyyli Living Lab is an inclusive RDI environment for the development, validation, and the acquisition of market references of sustainable, rail-based, smart urban transport technologies and services.

Lyyli Living Lab is a real-life development and test environment for urban transport products and services. At its core, it is a tram car equipped with exceptional measurement devices, IT connections, and a data management and analytics system.

LYYLI LIVING LAB
  • Operations started in Tampere in early 2022.
  • Lyyli Living Lab is an open piloting, development, and validation environment that invites Finnish and international operators to join its partner company network and to use its services by submitting an application to Tampereen Raitiotie Oy and agreeing on a partnership fee corresponding to their chosen participation period.
  • The operations of the Lyyli Living Lab development environment are steered by the TURMS innovation cluster, which is financed through partnership fees and Business Finland’s funding that will continue to the end of 2025.
  • The steering group of the innovation cluster includes Tampereen Raitiotie Oy, Skoda Transtech, Business Finland, Business Tampere, City of Tampere, VTT, and the University of Tampere.
  • Business Finland has granted EUR 366,000 to the rail transport laboratory. In addition, Business Finland has granted funding to the SmartRail ecosystem.

RRF FUNDING IN A KEY ROLE

Lyyli Living Lab is designed to meet the needs of companies as well as public, research, and other organizations that develop transport and mobility technologies and services. These companies and organizations are partners in the TURMS innovation cluster and use the RDI environment.

TOWARDS INTERNATIONAL MARKETS

Business Finland’s cooperation with Tampereen Raitiotie demonstrates that it is able to fund activities that differ from conventional research and development activities also through innovation clusters, for example. The potential for similar arrangements may also exist elsewhere.

The main goal of Business Finland is to make the group of organizations participating in the ecosystem more international.

RRF – 5G/6G, AI, Quantum – development environments and microelectronics

For 2023, Business Finland will open a new funding call for projects aimed at building or developing test, pilot, research, and innovation infrastructures that promote the development of 6G, AI, and quantum computing and advancing microelectronics.

For more information, please contact us or leave a message in the online customer service with the identifier RRF – 5G/6G, AI, Quantum – development environments and microelectronics.

The Sustainable Growth Program for Finland related to the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) aims to accelerate the development of competitiveness, investments, increased competence levels, and research, development, and innovation. It specifically focuses on promoting the green transition and the digital change.

Olavi Keränen
Business Finland
olavi.keranen (at) businessfinland.fi

 

Read the full article on Business Finland site

The picture is from the Business Finland website article on the subject

Observations from the Tampere – Särkänniniemi agile Drone Experiment

In the Tampere City Region, there was an agile experiment to examine the drone use cases. Unmanned aviation has developed rapidly in the recent years. Company Insta Group Oy provided the drones and situational awareness solution for the theme park Särkänniemi event, what was coordinated by Business Tampere.

Tampere-based Insta ILS is a specialist in avionics, remotely piloted aircraft systems and high tech. It is naturally interested in experiments where the company’s fields of expertise are needed and solutions can be tested. 

Lassila estimates that drone usage in event security is increasing significantly. For example, venues can be proactively inspected and their bottlenecks outlined with drones. While the event is happening, drones can be used to obtain real-time data on traffic, crowd flows and security issues.

When operating drones, one must know regulations

Miikka Nenonen, Field Operations Manager at Särkänniemi, tells that the theme park informs their visitors of the video surveillance in the area. The visitors usually take it positively, because surveillance makes them feel safe and comfortable. 

The regulation to harmonise drone operation throughout the EU entered into force on 31 December 2020. There are circa 450 pages of the regulations, therefore anyone operating an UAS should really know the rules in order to obey them. 

Miikka Nenonen, Field Operations Manager at Särkänniemi, tells that the theme park informs their visitors of the video surveillance in the area. The visitors usually take it positively, because surveillance makes them feel safe and comfortable. 

Observations: monitoring traffic and security

Monitoring the flow of traffic has proved to be a significant use case for drones, especially when events are causing only occasional traffic jams. In that case permanent surveillance cameras may not be needed, but drones could be used to monitor traffic congestion in several locations.   

Congestion data can be utilised to control the traffic. According to Nenonen, traffic jams could be alleviated by controlling traffic lights in cooperation with the City of Tampere, and informing the visitors to favour public transport when possible. Reducing traffic jams is also another way to improve customer experience.

Concerts held near lakes, like the ones organised in Särkänniemi, attract boat traffic. It is easy to monitor by drones, and in case of an emergency, rescue operations could be facilitated with the situational picture produced by a drone.

A thermal camera proved to be an excellent tool after dark. The experiment included a target person who stayed in the amusement park after the concert and had his location tracked by a drone.

– Our thermal camera contributed in an excellent way to existing surveillance camera system in the area, says Nissinen.

Other use cases for drones: maintenance, inspection

In the Särkänniemi agile experiment, other drone use cases were also considered: for example inspecting the amusement park rides, various maintenance tasks, like winter maintenance.

During the events drones can gather data in the venue: on what, when or where audience is doing. Drones can provide real-time situational awareness data and perform disturbance monitoring.

After the event drones provide data on the routes audience use to leave the venue, their timing and whether they’ve all left the venue. Traffic flows can be monitored in the nearby areas. Additionally, drones can monitor the venue for trespassers also outside event hours.

Read the original News on Business Tampere webpage

Image: Insta from the original news