By Violet Li
Casey council has officially launched Future Mobility Living Lab program with successful grant applications announced at the Casey Innovation Summit on Friday 27 October.
As Casey’s population is expected to grow from approximately 323,604 to 514,800 by 2024, Future Mobility aims to make transportation in the area more inclusive, safe, smart, and sustainable.
During the next year, Casey council will work with universities, innovative start-ups, businesses, and social enterprises to drive research and test solutions to solve the mobility challenges Casey currently faces.
The grant will help the council and its partners to deliver and validate innovative solutions and produce measurable economic, social, and environment benefits.
The following projects will receive funding via the Future Mobility Living Lab grant:
• Compass IoT: Compass IoT collects the metadata from vehicles driving in Casey. This data can be used to determine traffic flow, vehicular demographics, and road condition to help with city planning and maintenance.
• Aero Ranger: Aero Ranger will be helping outfit council vehicles with technology that detects illegal parking as well as unregistered and unsafe vehicles.
• Minnovation: Minnovation will use 4K object detectors to analyse traffic spots that are high risk to vulnerable pedestrians, such as children and older people living in a retirement village setting.
• Federation University: Federation University resides in the heart of Berwick and will provide technologies such as machine learning and AI to help improve the future of mobility in Casey.
• NTRO: National Transport Research Organisation will be testing some of their new concrete material containing recycled tyres and carbon fibre, to help Casey build more sustainable roads in the future, while preventing waste from landfill.
• Swinburne University: Swinburne University has partnered with Casey previously on several city challenges and it will assisting the council with deriving data insights regarding mobility challenges in the city.
Head of Smart City Innovation and Improvement Pearl Ng said the council was excited to launch the Casey Future Mobility Living Lab – a collaboration with the partners.
“This initiative tackles community mobility challenges, emphasising safety, sustainability, and technology,” she said.
“In 2024, our pop-up events will provide a platform for local businesses to showcase innovations and engage the community,
“The Living Lab concept drives our innovation approach, fostering public-private partnerships and open dialogues with the community to create cost-effective solutions.”
