Unjamming heavy metal
How researchers of the German Aerospace Center – DLR are smoothing the traffic flow
Wacken is a small town in Schleswig Holstein with less than 2,000 inhabitants about 12 kilometres from Itzehoe. The town’s website advertises its undisturbed pastoral surroundings. This is absolutely true on 360 days a year. The exception: the first weekend in August, the volume is turned up considerably every year when Wacken Open Air, the largest heavy metal festival in the world, takes place. It attracts 75,000 paying visitors travelling in 10,000 cars and motorbikes plus musicians, technicians, and staff.
How to manage this avalanche when it arrives and departs? How to make sure that fire fighters and medical staff reach their destination as quick as possible? Experts from the German Aerospace Center – DLR in Adlershof and Oberpfaffenhofen support the festival organisers on these issues. The VABENE++ project was in action at Wacken Open Air in 2015 and will continue to make life easier for the organisers from 4-6 August this year. Their system for “traffic management at large events and disasters” is held in high regard, not only in Wacken. The predecessor of VABENE++ premiered in 2005 at the Catholic World Youth Day in Cologne, where 1.2 million people flocked to the final holy mass on the Marienfeld.
VABENE++ consists of various means of gathering traffic data, explains project head Ronald Nippold. It collects all available local traffic data and pieces it together to create a big picture. It is complemented by extensive high-precision traffic observation from the air. In order to fill the remaining gaps, DLR researchers install bluetooth boxes which detect passing cars on the basis of bluetooth devices (hands-free phone systems, phones, navigation devices, etc.). Using encrypted and anonymised data, the researchers can measure the duration a car is located in its reception area. The longer the duration, the more likely it is that traffic is jammed.
These three elements – collection of available traffic data, supplemented by sensor technology from the air and bluetooth, piecing together to create a big picture – result in recommendations for organisers, emergency workers, and authorities on how directly influence traffic. VABENE++ is still “just” a research project. It will soon be marketed in cooperation with industrial partners. Of course, it can not only be used at music festivals, but can also save lives during, for example, natural disasters. VABENE++ has already stood the test in such situations. Its application is especially useful “in the country”, where, unlike urban areas, traffic measurement is scarce. It is planned to use VABENE++ during the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation which takes place in Wittenberg, home of Martin Luther.
Ronald Nippold tells us, the measuring system will also be used at the “Alte Försterei” football stadium in order to give the police a more detailed picture of the various streams of traffic such as people arriving in cars, or groups of supporters on foot. The DLR researchers are currently in negotiation with Berlin’s police department and the fans’ representative of the football club 1. FC Union. Ronald Nippold won’t be able to attend Wacken Festival this August, because his family comes first. He is a bit disappointed. Not only is working at such a spectacle exciting and fun, Ronald Nippold also likes listening to heavy metal himself. It wasn’t all that difficult to find a replacement. Wacken Open Air is a much sought-after job in the VABENE team.
By Harry Mehner for Adlershof Journal