OIC 2017: How can we improve the public acceptance of our infrastructure?

In 2016, Elia organised the first Start-Up/Open Innovation Challenge in order to identify start-ups that are proposing tools to enhance public acceptance of infrastructure projects. The contest was won by Gilytics, a Zurich-based start-up.

Gilytics’ solution provides an interactive platform to improve public participation in planning new projects with 3D visualisation and augmented reality.

The tool provides a set of functions for identifying the optimal route for power lines, including the possible position of masts. It allows interactive participation by all stakeholders involved in the planning process in order to find a common sustainable agreement.

The process is quite straightforward:

• Identify all data types that will contribute to the route definition: technical constraints, geology, habitat, nature protected zones, existing infrastructure, etc.
• Integrate the digitised version of these data and allocate them respective weights (e.g. avoidance of high population density areas or of schools) in the tool.
• Allow the tool to compute the optimal route based on these constraints.
• Visualise these results, e.g. using Google Earth.