Customer

Abu Dhabi Mobility, a transport center of the Abu Dhabi Department of Municipalities and Transport. The department manages public and cargo transportation by land, water, and air. It is responsible for building parking lots and bike lanes, monitoring traffic, and shaping a global vision of the transport system in the smart city. One of the latest high-profile projects of AD Mobility includes the transition to eco-friendly hydrogen and electric buses, along with the use of AI for traffic analysis to reduce congestion on Abu Dhabi streets.

Project partner Pixonal

Rubius developed a BI platform for Abu Dhabi urban mobility management in collaboration with its strategic partner, Pixonal. In this project, Pixonal is responsible for product concept and design. 
Pixonal is the leading design and technology firm with specialization in developing immersive data-driven products and stories for world leaders and decision-makers. Some of their clients include PricewaterhouseCoopers, as well as the government of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Problem: Making decisions based on unstructured data can be challenging

AD Mobility is a data-driven center. It measures average speeds, the number of traffic jams and accidents, as well as where and what types of transport residents use. Additionally, it tracks real estate usage across Abu Dhabi to assess the need for buses, parking, and bike lanes. As it is, this data is just a set of numbers. It is difficult to track trends, plan transport system development, or address daily tasks like managing traffic lights and adjusting bus schedules. 

To analyze such a large volume of information, AD Mobility employees have to prepare multipage reports and presentations. This process is time-consuming, and the data in the documents often remains unclear and quickly loses relevance.

Solution: BI platform for urban mobility management

To assist AD Mobility in managing the Abu Dhabi transport system, Rubius, in collaboration with Pixonal, developed a data fusion BI platform for smart mobility management in Abu Dhabi.

BI platform

A business intelligence platform (BI platform) is an interactive application for visualizing complex data. It gathers information from various sources (ERP, databases, sensors, cameras, etc.) and transforms it into visual graphs, charts, or tables. This format makes it easier for users to interpret large amounts of information. Unlike traditional presentations with similar graphs and charts, BI tools update data in real time, ensuring it remains relevant. Additionally, users can apply filters to analyze the information. For example, they can find out how much electricity the organization consumed over six months or how many employees worked on company sites yesterday.

BI platforms are universal. They are used in industry, trade, energy, and financial sector, logistics, construction and public administration.

How BI helps manage a Smart City

BI platforms gather and analyze large amounts of information. It includes the operation of public utilities, hospitals, schools, road conditions, parking lots, energy consumption, air pollution levels, the number of water pipeline failures, and traffic accidents. The greater the level of digitalization in an area, the more indicators can be analyzed in real time.

How BI operates Abu Dhabi infrastructure

The developed BI platform serves as an insightful, structured, and engaging tool to navigate the comprehensive data fusion catalog of Abu Dhabi’s traffic, mobility, population, and urban development information. It provides instant access to over 70 billion data points and the latest custom data visualizations. The BI platform empowers the top leadership of Abu Dhabi’s transport system by enabling instant access and streamlining meaningful communication of key strategic insights, essential to a data-driven decision-making process.

Module for fast planning. To quickly assess the situation, the most important indicators are displayed on the start screen of the application. In just a few minutes, users can find key data, such as the population of Abu Dhabi, the number of households and hotel rooms, road length, the number of trips, accidents, and problematic junctions.

Interactive Abu Dhabi map. The BI platform visualizes data on the operation of the transport system in relation to objects: territories, real estate, roads, and junctions. Selecting a point on the map opens a pop-up window with detailed information.

Four subject-related dashboards with detailed information. To facilitate quick searches, all indicators are categorized by topics: 

• Population: number, density, statistics by gender, age, nationality, occupation, income level, and car ownership
• Real estate: total area, location of residential buildings, offices, retail outlets, schools, hospitals, hotels, and industrial enterprises, along with their total area and water and electricity consumption
• Mobility: directions of traffic flows within, to, and from the emirate, and the number of passengers by transport type
• Traffic: length of roads, traffic volume, top congested streets and junctions, common entry and exit points of the route, driving speed, number of accidents categorized by severity of injuries, and transport type.

Heat maps. The application generates visual heat maps, showing:

• road load, indicating traffic volume in specific areas
• average and relative driving speed 
• traffic jams at junctions, displaying delay times in the area
• water and electricity consumption, categorized by type of object and monthly consumption volume

Problematic areas are highlighted in red on the map, making it easy to identify what requires immediate attention.

Filters: Users can refine the displayed information by applying filters for dates, periods, areas, and types of real estate. Additionally, there are preset filter templates for analyzing changes in the transport system operation during weekends, New Year, Ramadan, or rainy weather.

Export: The BI platform can serve as a ready-made online presentation. For offline use, data, charts, or heat maps can be exported as screenshots or videos in Full-HD resolution.

Result: Data-driven management for sustainable urban mobility

The BI platform for smart mobility management in Abu Dhabi is now being implemented. It provides an accurate understanding of the current and future transport needs. In a time to come, the platform will lay the foundation for strategic decision-making, enabling AD Mobility to improve service quality, develop transport infrastructure, and anticipate future challenges.

How the BI platform helps control the Abu Dhabi transport system: 

• It reduces communication and data processing costs. A BI dashboard provides a ready-to-use, insightful report. Simply launch the application, apply filters, and you are ready to start the meeting.
• It increases the transparency of processes and results. The BI dashboard visualizes real-time, ‘clean’ data from government information systems, providing the most reliable way to evaluate performance and access objective information.
• It improves labor productivity. With BI, city managers have up-to-date information, enabling them to make informed and timely decisions. There is no need to wait for employees to compile statistics or spend hours reviewing documents.
• It helps predict problems. By analyzing historical data, managers can identify negative trends in city development and address them before they impact citizens. For instance, they can adjust the transport network or increase road capacity in a timely manner.