How can railways profit from Open Data
Austrian Railways challenges you to discuss innovation
The most innovative solutions are often found in unexpected places or by fresh minds. To facilitate and catalyse innovation in their sector, the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) therefore launched the Open Innovation Platform to welcome all potential innovators. On this platform they want to harness the innovative strength and creativity of the crowd to develop or improve their services.
The platform enables people to participate or contribute to the ÖBB's future in two ways. They can express their concerns or discuss important topics on the Customer Board to address points of interest for the company. Another way the platform is used to facilitate interaction is by the Innovation Challenges. These rolling challenges are organised by the ÖBB that invites participants to submit ideas or suggestions for certain topics. The first challenge, "Finden Sie Ihren Sitzplatz" (Find your seat) concerned helping people find available seating in (busy) trains. This challenge was won by Anton Maurer who combines different (Open) Data sources to predict the availability of seats. The current challenge concerns the customer journey and in particular the time passengers spend at stations. The ÖBB is looking for ways to improve this time, for instance by changing the atmosphere at the stations.
By embracing Open Innovation, Austrian Federal Railways are trying to catalyse their innovation and improve their services. Do you also want to participate in one of their challenges, for example with the use of Open Data? Take a look at their site and find out all you need to know.
