News

The brand new version 4.0 of the SmartRoadSense mobile app is now available: it introduces an entirely new mode that allow users to play with the data they just collected. Players will have to transport frangible objects on a vehicle moving on uneven terrain, which is generated using precedently collected road quality data.

The game, developed in cooperation with the Disruptive Media Learning Lab at Coventry University, within the CROWD4ROADS project, aims at giving users insight into the data they collected and making them more aware of road maintenance issues.

The new version of the app is now available for Android and iOS.

Over the course of the last 3 years, SmartRoadSense has been part of the CROWD4ROADS project (or C4Rs, for short). C4Rs combines 7 partners across Europe under the “CAPSSI” umbrella (i.e., Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation), which aims at exploring the opportunities and potential for Digital Social Innovation (DSI) based on bottom-up solutions, citizen participation, openness, and decentralization, to tackle important issues that affect society.

The Digital Social Innovation Manifesto, drafted by a team of innovators, provides an insight into these concepts and how they can be applied to provide more powerful civic participation within democratic and social processes. SmartRoadSense fully embraces many of the keypoints in the manifesto, including openness (open source software and open data), decentralized data collection to promote citizen awareness, digital tool integration, and sustainability.

Please, take a look to the DSI Manifesto and take a minute to endorse it. ✍

Check out the new video preview of “Balance Trucks”, the game mode of SmartRoadSense that will allow you to play with road quality data you collected.

The game will be released in the next major version of SmartRoadSense.

We are excited to announce that the University of Urbino and the Pavement division (Befæsteler) at the Danish Road Directorate (Vejdirektoratet) have recently signed a collaboration agreement with the intent to further study and evaluate the potentialities of algorithms and road quality models developed and implemented by SmartRoadSense.

We look forward to cooperating with the Vejdirektoratet and to fully deploy SmartRoadSense in Denmark.

Our CROWD4ROADS team is back from Web Summit 2018, the largest tech conference in Europe. There they joined other CAPS projects at the “Social Innovation Village”, hosted by the Social Good Accelerator, and endured four intense days attending our booth, listening to talks, and walking around the huge area (mostly with a blank expression on their faces).

Our CROWD4ROADS stand within the Social Innovation Village.

Founder of the Web Tim Berners-Lee captivated the audience at the opening ceremony and stressed the obligations of the community to close the digital divide and fix the Web for everybody. On day 2, Microsoft vice-president Brad Smith and Tony Blair also underlined the disruptive capacity of the tech industry and the need for political discourse to catch up with these changes.

Jeanne Bretécher for Génération 2 led the “More Social Good in Tech, more Tech in Social Good” discussion, focusing on changes to institutions that were not designed for the world we currently live in. Talks continued during the “European Night” side-event at Casa do Impacto, with over 60 participants.

Opening night of Web Summit, at the Altice Arena.

Coffee and crowdsensing.

Crowded moments at our booth.

Jeanne Bretécher on the Forum Stage.

The Lisbon Declaration for social innovation.

Round table at Casa Do Impacto.

The C4Rs team: Saverio Delpriori, Lorenz Cuno Klopfenstein, and Donna Boardman.

The largest tech conference in Europe, Web Summit 2018, will start next monday 5 November in Lisbon: among the giants of the Web, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and tech enthusiasts, the CROWD4ROADS project will also be there and join the “Social Innovation Village” hosted by the Social Good Accelerator. Read the full press release.

Come visit us at our CROWD4ROADS booth on 6 November, in Pavillion 2, E213! Also, we will be at the “Tech for Impact: focus on Sustainable Cities” event hosted by makesense at Casa de Impacto.

On that occasion, SmartRoadSense will expand to cover Portugal, which will thus be the 5th country where our road surface quality monitoring service is active.

CROWD4ROADS also launches the “Road to Web Summit” campaign: if you are traveling to (or from) the event next week, if you are taking a taxi ride, or if you are just traveling by car around Portugal, take this chance to join our initiative and download the SmartRoadSense mobile app!

On the 25th September morning we kicked off the CROWD4ROADS “Crowdsourcing for the Common Good” Summer School, hosted by the University of Urbino at Collegio Raffaello in Urbino. 24 people registered to the school for two days of sessions about collective intelligence, crowdsensing, data privacy, and gamification and the final “Data Jam” event.

Sessions included talks by Dragos Sebastian Cristea (University “Dunărea de Jos” of Galați) about Machine Learning, Marco Ciurcina from project DECODE, prof. Fabio Giglietto (for project MINE2018) Richard Tomlins (Coventry University), prof. Sylvester Arnab, and Mark Lewis. Participants of the concluding hackaton event had the opportunity of working on real datasets provided by SmartRoadSense, HackAIR, SmartCitizen (DECODE), and MINE2018.

We would also like to thank the participants of the two teams that presented their projects at the end of the “Data Jam”, after working hard until late the night before: Francesca Buso, Paolo Cappellacci, Gian Marco Di Francesco, Antonella Milanini, Erica Scatizza, Nicolò Tambone.

Saverio Delpriori, University of Urbino, introduction to Mobile Crowdsensing systems.

Dragos Sebastian Cristea, University “Dunărea de Jos” of Galați, introducing Machine Learning in the age of Big Data.

Marco Ciurcina, for project DECODE.

Final presentations during the “Data Jam”.

This year, Regione Marche and the CROWD4ROADS project have partnered in a long series of public events that were held during the summer months. All events have been promoted by the region’s administration and by local communities, promoting the adoption of SmartRoadSense and the use of trip sharing solutions such as BlaBlaCar.

The Risorgi Marche festival had a very large resonance among the local population and nearby regions, attracting more than 150.000 people to attend live music shows organized in locations hit by the recent earthquake. Similarly, the PhotoWalk2018 has brought groups of participants to lesser known places in the Marches, to explore them, discover artistic, natural, or gastronomic highlights, while sharing the trip through social media. Finally, the Camper in viaggio tour has been on the road since 21th September and will reach the finishing line in the end of October, driving through several cities within Regione Marche while using SmartRoadSense.

In a new article published on StartupItalia!, Carlo Terzano interviews prof. Alessandro Bogliolo from the University of Urbino and talks about SmartRoadSense, crowdsensing initiatives, active citizenship, and the importance road infrastructure maintenance, felt by many to be especially inadequate in the wake of the recent tragedy in Genoa.

“Roads, recent political discussions aside, are a common good and it should be in everyone’s interest, not only as drivers but as citizens, to participate in monitoring activities to ensure that they are maintained in proper order.”

Read the full interview (in Italian).

The registration process for the “Crowdsourcing for the Common Good” Summer School organized by the CROWD4ROADS project is now open!

The Summer School will be held in Urbino (Italy) from September 24th to 27th, 2018 and will include two days of sessions about social innovation, collective intelligence, crowdsensing, data privacy, and gamification and one full day “Data Jam” (a Hackaton-like all night long event). Check out the Summer School page for further details.

Submit your free registration request by August 12th: participation for confirmed attendants is free of charge, including food and drinks during the “Data Jam”. Accommodation and travel costs are not covered.