Before, during and after football matches of the Dresden second division team SG Dynamo Dresden, there is a lot of movement in the Saxon state capital. From the arrival of fans by bus, train or car, to parking around the stadium in the city centre, to the flow of visitors into and out of the stadium - an event like this presents the organisers with numerous challenges in terms of traffic, mobility and logistics. So why not bring creative minds together to think about how these challenges can be solved more "smartly" using Big Data?

This is what happened at a hackathon at the end of October (22-24.10.21) in Dresden's Rudolf Harbig Stadium. More than 50 creative (young) hardware and software developers met at the Open Data Camp 2021 under the motto "Stadionhack Urban Mobility". They developed ideas and digital solutions for visitors to the Rudolf Harbig Stadium to make the journey between their homes and their seats at the stadium in a relaxed manner. The focus was on innovative approaches to designing new forms of mobility. Over the weekend, the participants developed new ideas based on Open Data and other data and data sets provided by partners, and programmed the appropriate solutions.

Aspiring transport managers win 1st prize in the "Innovation" category

A total of nine teams took on the tasks from the five challenge areas and presented their projects after about 40 hours. Among the teams was one that included 3 students of the Master's programme in Transportation Economics at the "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences of the TU Dresden. Florian Ebert, Philipp Krüger and Johanna Nehrkorn, together with non-transport science student Christian Heidrich, looked for new digital ways to organise the journey to and from a Dynamo home game with their project "Dynavigation". With their ideas and their development (see presentation as download on the right), they convinced the jury and won 1st prize in the "Innovation" category.

Participation in the hackathon also helped the 3 prospective transport managers with their studies. "At the same time, they have laid the foundation for a study project as part of the master's course ,Applications of Data Analytics', which I supervise," says Professor Pascal Kerschke, Head of the Chair for Big Data Analytics in Transportation at the "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences. He is very pleased about the success of his students and the great combination of teaching and practice through the project.

Two members of the Chair of Big Data Analytics in Transportation were also involved in the Open Data Camp 2021 as supervisors. Lennart Schäpermeier (research assistant) and Jonathan Heins (student assistant) supervised the teams from Challenge Area 5 - Visitor Flow Forecasting - and were completely enthusiastic about the event, according to Prof. Kerschke.

After the Open Data Camp, all teams will now have the opportunity to work on their ideas further and implement them in the best possible way. The organisers and partners of the hackathon are supporting the continuation of the projects. For Dynamo fans, the proposals for forecasting visitor flows in the stadium, the proposals for relaxed arrivals and departures on home match days and for routing in the Dynamo living room are particularly interesting. The fan community Dynamo e. V. also classifies the idea of the wildcard team as "very creative and exciting". They want to continue working on these projects together with the teams.