In preparation for the 2006 Soccer World Cup, Siemens is developing and operating an intelligent traffic management solution in the Ruhrgebiet region of Germany – the Ruhrpilot (in german).

The system will recommend routes and provide road users with up-to-date traffic information collected by several thousand sensors. Depending on the volume of traffic, Ruhrpilot selects the fastest route. The information can be downloaded from the net, to a mobile phone or using the car’s navigation system. Traffic information and a route planner will be available free of charge in June 2006, right in time for the World Cup.

The system will also determine weather information, road conditions, construction work, accidents, parking garage occupancy, and the railway data of Deutsche Bahn.

Talking about parking garages…

Many plots in our cities are abused as parking lots. A Swiss design and engineering bureau have invented a fully automatic and compact parking system which requires only one fourth of the space.

With SmartP®, the driver drives the automobile on to a platform where the car is centered, measured, captured mechanically and electronically, then pulled onto a high-speed lift, which drives it up to the assigned level and rotates it towards the intended storage bay.

As the user does not have admission to the parking areas, there is no need for elevators, lighting, ventilation emergency stairs, es-cape ways and fire extinguishing systems.

This patented system can be disassembled quickly and reassembled somewhere else. A small place of only 20 by 20 meters is sufficient for a parking tower that has a capacity of up to 300 cars. For an underground installation of smart P only 25% of the excavation has to be dug.

Via dexigner.