MoU

Audi and the US city of Somerville, Massachusetts, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop an urban strategy for the ‘smart city’ project.

The MoU was signed by Audi CEO Rupert Stadler and Somerville mayor Joseph A Curtatone.

As part of the urban strategy, technologies will be applied for automated parking, swarm intelligence, and the networking of cars with traffic lights in the city of Somerville, which is centrally located in the Boston metropolitan area, a region that has the fastest-growing economy after Silicon Valley, California.

Audi and the city have agreed to work closely to build a new mobility strategy for Somerville, with the focus on exchanging knowledge and testing of new technologies.

"Our joint work on urban innovations and the exchange and analysis of data are the key to beneficial swarm intelligence."

Stadler said: "The intelligent car can unfold its enormous potential only in an intelligent city. Our joint work on urban innovations and the exchange and analysis of data are the key to beneficial swarm intelligence."

Somerville will serve as a role model for ‘smart cities’.

Due to urban development, a new road traffic strategy is required.

Audi will support with innovations such as the traffic-light assistant, which will help traffic flow faster.

The collaboration also aims at reducing the space requirement of automobiles.

Curtatone said: "The car will always be part of our mobility. At the same time, due to congestion and parking problems, today it shows us the limits to mobility.

"With technologies from Audi, we expect to be able to use the available urban space more efficiently. This enhances the quality of urban life."

Besides networked infrastructure, Audi will bring automated parking to the project. Self-parking cars result in three different benefits, namely parking garages can be relocated from the city centre to less attractive places, self-parking cars will place themselves closer, demanding fewer and narrower lanes in garages, which will in turn reduce the parking area required a car by approximately 2m², and there will be reduction in the number of cars on the roads searching for a parking space.

Image: Audi CEO and the mayor of Somerville agree to provide urban traffic solutions to the city of Somerville, Massachusetts. Photo: courtesy of Audi Urban Future Initiative.