vialytics secures 8 million euros to make road management in municipalities more efficient with AI
vialytics, the leading international SaaS company for intelligent road management systems, secures another round of financing. A total of EUR 8 million has been invested, with Acton Capital as new lead investor and further funding from existing investors Statkraft Ventures, EnBW New Ventures and Scania Growth Capital. vialytics CEO Patrick Glaser: ‘Our goal is to offer every aspect of infrastructure management in one system by 2030 and to cover over 400,000 kilometers of road worldwide with vialytics. This distance is roughly equivalent to the distance from the earth to the moon. We are on a very promising path.’
With vialytics, municipal road and civil engineering departments can record road conditions and inventory simply and efficiently using a smartphone app as they drive past. The web system then records and plans all necessary measures for the maintenance and upkeep of roads and paths.
New milestones
Following the successful market entry in the USA last year, CEO Patrick Glaser wants to use the new funds to strengthen the financial basis of the company with 100 employees. The core product of automatic road condition monitoring is also being continuously developed. New functions, such as intelligent budget planning, enable local authorities to maximize the number of useful years from their road budgets. An extension for the automatic damage analysis of traffic signs has recently been implemented.
Intelligent and efficient road management using the example of the city of Goslar
The municipal employees in Goslar, Lower Saxony, have to keep an eye on almost 350 kilometers of road network in order to guarantee the statutory road safety obligation for all citizens. Damaged roads, forest paths and pavements, faded markings and traffic signs, rotten benches and playground equipment - the flood of tasks in a town with 50,000 inhabitants can sometimes seem overwhelming. In addition to regular inspections, urgent damage must be repaired quickly and long-term maintenance measures must be planned into the financial budget in good time. Until now, the responsible offices in the Goslar city administration have used various means to manage the infrastructure and distribute orders. ‘From pen and paper to Excel and e-mail to fax, everything was involved. Information got lost or didn't reach the right people. We often didn't know exactly which roads needed the most repairs,’ explains digitalization officer Holger Dettmer.
Artificial intelligence and smartphone app
With the vialytics road management system introduced at the Goslar road administration at the beginning of 2024, the offices of the Goslar city administration are increasingly recognizing the added value of the technology employed. With the help of the smartphone app, images are taken every four meters during road inspections, which the integrated artificial intelligence (AI) can then analyze.
The results can be used in the browser-based web system to plan and implement all further processes for maintaining and servicing the infrastructure. Instead of a communicative jungle, all the offices involved now operate on a single platform, with which the recorded data is always up-to-date and processed in transparent process steps. ‘Media discontinuity is a thing of the past,’ states Holger Dettmer.
Over 500 local authorities in seven countries now maintain their roads with the vialytics system. ‘Every citizen wants to live in liveable cities and communities. Our road management system helps to manage roads more efficiently and get the most out of the municipal budget,’ explains vialytics CEO Patrick Glaser. ‘There is currently no software that better fulfils municipal requirements.’