Public Funding for Slingshot Simulations Ltd

The MObility Data Exchange (MODE) platform will, in 6-months, prove value for end users and transport planners that can be realised from surfacing data across the stakeholder landscape of bus public transport. We use buses as an exemplar for regionalised low-carbon transport options which operate in a complex, changeable environment and yet need to offer a reliable, low-carbon transport option to encourage adoption. We will prove how barriers to sharing data can be removed or reduced such that even competitive or potentially sensitive data can be shared selectively and securely to meet specific objectives, with data owners all the while maintaining control over their own data. The MODE project team will engage with stakeholders to explore what opportunities can be achieved by addressing data sharing concerns, demonstrating the art of the possible by applying IOTICS' secure, selective data sharing technology so that WYCA's transport stakeholders can engage with real or example data sources from across participating data owners. Slingshot Simulations, as a technology solutions provider, will create visual interfaces to express this value, such as a map-based view of real-time geo-referenced data including bus movements, traffic congestion, weather, air quality, roadworks and such like. These will help to illustrate benefits back to transport planners looking to make low-carbon policy implementation and improve transport plans to create a step-change in improved transport provision for the future. They will also demonstrate to transport users the types of information which could be used to help them in their smart transport choices, taking low-carbon options into their decision making. MODE will provide a scalable, use-case agnostic data-sharing capability which uses place-based analytics, decentralised data exchange, insights and data from a leading Combined Authority and its stakeholders to overcome some of the most common challenges to data sharing. Combining WYCA's Real-time information, IOTICS' secure selective sharing capability and Slingshot Simulation's intuitive low code place-based analytics, we will deliver a trusted, secure ecosystem of information and insights for right-time interventions. This will mitigate challenges of disparate data ownership, deluge of data points, and siloed analysis, and provide a future-flexible solution which can absorb both vertical scaling in terms of richness of data as well as horizontal scaling across other transport modes and different regions.

Public description The Yorkshire Geospatial Twin project is the next incremental step towards a National Digital Twin expanding on the work in Leeds by creating a 3D model of the entire region incorporating satellite, LIDAR, transport, and IoT data to provider a fuller picture of the world we live and operate in. This project involves scaling up the Leeds Digital Twin to span Yorkshire with a focus on 3 cities and their specific data and mobility challenges: Leeds York Hull This project is also supported by both BT and Arup.

The vision for this project is in the name: Breathing Cities. "_The Covid-19 lockdown has led to cleaner air but will do little to address the issue of air pollution in the long run_ \[and\] _world leaders now have a chance to plot a different, cleaner future_" \[1\]. Slingshot Simulations plans to use this project to help city councils to not only develop their resilience to the influx of traffic and people returning to work but help them find sustainable methods of positively impacting people working and living in cities. Our mission would be to use the data we have as a society and maximizing its potential through our Simulation-as-a-service platform to encourage healthier, breathing cities coming out of Covid-19\. Our main objective is to brace city councils for the impact on, and as a result of, the traffic and people flow as we return to work following the pandemic. By using existing data to forecast and then iteratively, in real-time, update those forecasts, we want to support councils by informing them of the Pandemic situation from multiple environmental and economic angles thus helping them monitor developments and adapt their strategies in an agile manner. The focus will be on working to significantly accelerate our existing partnership with Leeds City Council to find solutions surrounding, transport (including couriers and delivery) and people, specifically how transport and citizens will move around the city following the wake of Covid-19 with the aim for councils to view all possible "what-if" scenarios of traffic and people flows and plan accordingly. For example, helping them with their Clean Air Zone Strategy \[2\], which is due to be enforced from mid-2020 and could have a further impact on local business, particularly couriers and delivery systems. Our truly original Simulation-as-a-Service platform, has been developed over seven years of R&D at the University of Leeds: * It runs in real-time, allowing businesses and organisations to act immediately * It can produce results within days not months using just flowcharts * And most importantly it uses a "no-coding" approach that both accelerates and democratises the benefits of high-end simulation for businesses big and small. This fresh approach of interactive forecasting, multi-objective optimisations, and "what-if" analysis could lead to a world first: A real "Digital Twin". 1. [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/the-deadly-link-between-Covid-19-and-air-pollution/][0] 2. [https://www.leeds.gov.uk/business/environmental-health-for-business/air-quality][1] [0]: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/the-deadly-link-between-covid-19-and-air-pollution/ [1]: https://www.leeds.gov.uk/business/environmental-health-for-business/air-quality --ADDITIONAL INFORMATION HERE-- Once we have demonstrated the first Digital Twin of a city at scale integrating data from a wide range of sources the project will change focus towards: 1) Enterprise deployment on AWS (through our AWS Activate partnership membership) 2) User adoption, aiming to drive 1,000 users to the platform during by Q2 of 2021 3) Automated replication in other cities across the UK and North America deployed in the SaaS platform By making the solution more widely available, and initially at zero cost, the platform will be accessible to those organisations and businesses who desperately need access to these tools to help them respond to and recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. This project also has the potential to completely revolutionise the Digital Twin market landscape.