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projectTampere Pulse is an innovative service that uses AI-driven forecasts of visitor flows to helps businesses in Tampere, Finland make more informed decisions.
This information was sourced from "Tampere Pulse" by Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OECD), https://oecd-opsi.org/innovations/tampere-pulse/. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO).
Tampere Pulse is an innovative service that uses AI-driven forecasts of visitor flows to helps businesses in Tampere, Finland make more informed decisions. The idea for the service was sparked by customer feedback from local entrepreneurs who found predicting customer flows to be difficult, time-consuming, and complicated. Recognizing the potential of digital solutions to address this issue, we employed agile methods to discover and implement easy-to-use, smart, human-centric digital services for our residents. The result was Tampere Pulse, a pilot project designed to solve the above challenge and provide a valuable tool for the city’s businesses.
The service collects data from traffic cameras with built-in machine vision that are integrated into the city’s IoT platform and its world-class capabilities. The predictive model takes into account factors such as weather forecasts, the day of the week, holidays, and larger events, to create a month-long forecast of visitor flows for each street. The user interface is designed to be user-friendly and easy to understand, with a map-based view that allows users to quickly find information for the desired time and location.
In terms of resource optimization, our innovation helps businesses to streamline work shift planning, fine-tune inventory management, and pinpoint the most productive operating hours. This not only paves the way for significant cost reductions but also elevates the level of customer service. For instance, a restaurant can use Pulse to predict busy periods and adjust staffing levels accordingly, while a retailer can forecast product demand and manage inventory more effectively.
Tampere Pulse is committed to safety and privacy, and it ensures that all data collected from cameras is processed in a way that keeps everyone anonymous. The service is useful not only for businesses, but also for people who live in or visit the city, and it can help maintenance units and security authorities as well.
Our innovation is an example of human-centric digital transformation and design and co-creation at their best. The development of the application is a collaborative endeavor, involving various stakeholders. This inclusive approach ensures that the application caters to a broad spectrum of needs, serving a diverse array of groups effectively. Our current development plan extends through 2025 and beyond, incorporating a range of strategic initiatives to elevate the service to new heights. These include expanding its coverage area, enhancing user experience, and introducing innovative capabilities that will redefine the way people and companies engage with the platform.
Tampere Pulse is part of our vision for a smarter, more sustainable urban future. By harnessing the power of technology and data, we’re transforming Tampere into a smart urban environment that strengthens businesses and enhances the lives of our citizens and visitors.
Businesses often face challenges such as inefficient resource management, suboptimal operating hours, and inventory issues. Tampere Pulse, a service platform powered by AI, addresses these issues by generating predictive insights. By facilitating optimal resource management, the application enables businesses to plan work shifts efficiently, manage inventory effectively, and determine the most effective operating hours, which can lead to cost savings and improved customer service. What sets our innovation apart is also its versatility in the future: by harnessing diverse data sets to construct a variety of predictive AI models, the platform can offer solutions tailored to different scenarios and requirements. With continuous improvements and updates, our platform is being developed to offer an even wider range of solutions, ensuring that it remains a valuable tool not only for all downtown operators regardless of their size or industry, but also but also citizens and visitors alike.
Tampere Pulse was carried out as an agile pilot project in April and May of 2023 and the service was launched in May 2023. The first implementation phase was executed swiftly by any standards – and especially in the context of the public sector. We are currently working closely with our stakeholders to improve the service and collecting feedback from users so that we know what elements of the application need refinement and how we can enhance city planning and visitor experience even more. For example, we are working on making the AI-powered predictions cover more of the city center area, and we are continuously adding new integrations and features to the platform. As our service continues to mature, we are increasingly leveraging the opportunities presented by the data-driven economy.
Tampere Pulse is a co-creation between the City of Tampere, private sector software developers and local businesses. The service utilizes data from Tampere’s IoT platform (provided by Wapice Oy), which collects data from multiple sources and builds a situational picture of the city’s operations. It can be used to combine different data sources, visualize them, and automate operations. For instance, street light energy usage can be optimized according to weather conditions and traffic flows.
The visitor flow forecast is presented in six colours ranging from light green to dark red. Green represents low traffic and red represents high traffic. Tampere Pulse predicts the correct colour three weeks ahead with 79.33% accuracy and correct or next colour with 97.55% accuracy.
In the customer feedback survey, users rated the ease of use of the Tampere Pulse interface as 4.47 out of 5, and the likelihood of recommendation is 7.16 out of 10. Users estimated that they find the information they need with a score of 3.74 out of 5.
Users also provided candid feedback, expressing their desire for insights into visitors' purchasing behavior beyond just visitor numbers, along with the integration of the service into ERP systems.
Introducing innovative AI to local businesses brings opportunities and challenges. Navigating uncharted waters, we blend diverse data sources, integrate IoT and AI, and address hurdles like intellectual property rights. Bringing this service to city businesses demands a careful balance, overcoming challenges such as crafting algorithms that resonate with all customers. Encouraging businesses to adopt our free public sector service is a challenge, involving perfecting technology and ensuring widespread adoption. The question of AI ownership is central, requiring seamless integration into daily operations. Pioneering this initiative involves technological refinement, ensuring our platform resonates broadly.
The success of our innovation hinges on its utility to users and its ability to stimulate business growth and vitality. It is also rooted in actively engaging stakeholders in its development through open dialogue and the incorporation of user experiences. This co-creation process is the cornerstone of Tampere Pulse’s success, fostering a service that truly resonates with both its users and our city. With cost-effective and agile upkeep and development, and of course motivation that fosters new innovation, we are bound to succeed further.
The scalability of our AI service is a key asset, offering the potential for direct replication in other urban environments, as long as there is a functioning IoT platform, as in our case. While initially developed to cater to businesses, Tampere Pulse's application-generated data holds value beyond the commercial sector. Law enforcement, emergency services, and other public entities can leverage the insights provided by our application. We have received inquiries internationally, serving as a benchmark for many other cities globally. This signifies the universal applicability and adaptability of our innovative solution, positioning it as a valuable tool for enhancing public safety and urban planning on a broader scale.
Our innovation's success lies in its collaborative and human-centric approach, involving users, entrepreneurs, and business organizations from its inception. The rapid release of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) marked a milestone. The tangible efforts to enhance Pulse not only unlocked new collaboration opportunities but also fostered closer ties between public and private entities. Importantly, this project stands as a commendable example of effective AI implementation through co-creation with a private company within the public sector.
Budget: Not disclosed
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