From a folding car to an intelligent traffic light | Israel today

Atidim Park Tel Aviv serves as a home for the development of transportation technologies.

The streets of the park have become a living laboratory

• Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Innovation Lab

  Photo: 

  Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi PR

Produced by the Department of Special Supplements

All this is happening right under our noses: an electric laboratory of an international car giant, an Israeli company that manages Internet applications for fuel management from Israel, a start-up that invented an algorithm for managing traffic at traffic lights, a tiny car that is about to issue half a billion shekels.

Many and varied transportation ventures, some of the most advanced in the global transportation market, make double use of Tel Aviv real estate - both renting offices to hundreds of workers and young startups and also turning their workspaces and streets near their home into a living urban lab for innovative transportation experiments. The largest in the world, and Atidim Park Tel Aviv Real Estate yields an ecosystem of the major breakthroughs in the Israeli and international transportation world.

The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi car company is already inside.

The field of transportation has been developing rapidly in the world in recent years, and Israel is at the forefront of technology with the largest number of startups in this industry, around the strengths of the Israeli high-tech industry - sensors, computer vision, artificial intelligence and cyber.

Along with the demand for dealing with the growing traffic load and efficiency, convenience and innovation, a race of leading companies is evolving to reinvent themselves and be the gospel bearers of friendly transportation solutions.

A glimpse into Atidim Park Tel Aviv, owned by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality and Tel Aviv University, known as the city's innovation arena due to being a major anchor for income-producing real estate of the leading companies, is a mirror image of the entire field. Of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, the international vehicle fleet management company Roseman Engineering and a variety of start-ups and companies in the field of transportation, developing groundbreaking innovations.

These companies enjoy a fertile neighborhood with about 100 leading companies in the fields of high-tech, biotech, engineering and the innovation arena Citizon - a program that houses 22 unique Israeli start-ups and allows them to experience a living and kicking urban laboratory.

Sagi Niv, CEO of Atidim Park Tel Aviv: "There is no doubt that the issue of smart transportation and mobility is one of the burning areas for all of us for obvious reasons.

The significant advantage in the field of smart transportation is that Atidim Park Tel Aviv, as the ultimate mix of uses, serves as a living experimental field for car companies and start-ups in this field.

Parts of the companies' work spaces are used as real laboratories for the automotive field, and the park spaces are used by some of the companies as a living and kicking experimental complex.

It is a combination of real value and a relevant ecosystem in the race to win the next thing in the world of transportation. "

Examining technologies

At the forefront of real estate that houses transportation, is the innovation lab of global car giant Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, which covers an area of ​​Atidim Park in Tel Aviv covering about 1,600 square meters.

This is a unique facility, which provides start-ups with a space adapted for testing technologies on real vehicles, as well as a team of engineers and experts from the group who sit in Israel regularly. 

The laboratory focuses on the identification and feasibility testing (POC) of Israeli technologies, mainly in the field of sensors, cyber, data and artificial intelligence (AI), which can be integrated into cars and future services in the vehicle group.

The laboratory collaborates with start-ups in the local ecosystem through joint work on prototypes, and so far has led more than 30 collaborative projects with Israeli companies.

Some are already advancing in front of the global corporation, and a number of successes have been recorded at the technological level. 

The Innovation Lab at Atidim Park Tel Aviv is one of the three automotive labs of the automotive group in the world, with the other two located in Shanghai in China and Silicon Valley in California.

Since February 2018, the laboratory has been operating within the framework of the technological laboratories program of the Israeli Innovation Authority.

Etienne Brebia, Director of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Innovation Lab in Tel Aviv: "The location of the lab in Atidim Park allows us to deepen our involvement in the local ecosystem and test our technologies in a smart city environment. The integration in Atidim Park between Tel Aviv Municipality and Tel Aviv University makes the park a field. Unique experiments in the country in the field of smart city and smart transportation, a suitable location for examining groundbreaking vehicle technologies. "

Engineers the future

Roseman Engineering started as a small company somewhere in 1978. Its groundbreaking technology has completely changed the world of vehicle fleet management and refueling in Israel and later in the world.

The small family company has grown over the years (but remains family-owned), and today occupies a real estate area of ​​about 1,500 square meters for its dozens of employees.

The company continues to release various innovations in the field of transportation.

In recent years, it has developed an Internet application for vehicle fleet management, and has developed an automated refueling device system - technology that has been distributed in the United States and around the world, as well as a vehicle fleet management system that performs information integration for administrative and route optimization.

Great idea for a small car

From the creator of CITYZONE - the innovation arena for start-ups, which operates from the heart of Atidim Park, in an office complex divided into urban spaces inspired by the streets of Tel Aviv, great news is coming to the world of transportation frequently.

One of the most notable innovations: City Transformer, which announced last month that it will be issued in the amount of NIS 400 to 650 million.

The company has developed a compact vehicle, 1.4 meters wide and can be folded to just one meter wide, in order to successfully enter narrow parking lots around the city.

The tiny-but-mighty vehicle is able to almost completely take out of the equation the parking search saga in the bustling city, providing a nimble, small and eco-friendly micromobility solution, even for those who are afraid of riding a scooter or bicycle.

Two other start-ups are working hard in the future of transportation: SoftRide, which is developing a system for making existing vehicles autonomous, and Make My Day, which is developing a smart system for optimizing routes and charging for owners of electric vehicles.

A traffic light with a mind

The streets inside the Tel Aviv business complex are well utilized to experiment with the new technologies.

Unlike standard traffic light systems, which schedule traffic lights based on inaccurate data collected several years ago and are not frequently updated, ITC's system relies on data from cameras placed at roads and intersections and calculates its expected load in the near future, thus preventing congestion.

The system could allow a green wave for vehicles that came from a busier road, thus avoiding future congestion, or prioritizing public transportation, emergency vehicles and pedestrians, according to city requirements.

The company has just installed the first system of its kind in the living experimental arena - Park Atidim Tel Aviv, which plans the future operation of the traffic lights in the area and is able to control them remotely.

Safety and charging

How can one treat transportation revolutions in urban real estate without talking about micro-mobility? It seems as if the cooperative scooters scattered throughout Tel Aviv have always been there, even though they have only been here a few years.

They are environmentally friendly and ideal for a period of global plague - instead of being crowded with public transport you can travel alone in the open air.

Along with the benefits, there are also navigation difficulties, and of course there is also a safety risk when traveling.

The start-up Trailze - one of the stars of the transportation real estate arena, is developing an app for smart navigation of miniature vehicles - with an emphasis on rider safety.

Another challenge that futuristic entrepreneurs are trying to deal with is that scooters need safe charging of the battery, and parking that does not interfere with passers-by.

This is where power mobility comes into the picture, offering a wireless charging solution for the tiny means of transportation.

Want to stay up to date all the time?

Sign up now for the Real Estate Newsletter today

Talk real estate with Ofer Petersburg. Listen to the new podcast >>

Security and efficiency

Following the innovations that are taking place at Citizon Park Atidim Tel Aviv, there are many start-ups whose purpose is to significantly improve transportation safety.

Startup Road Sense has developed radar sensors for public space monitoring.

At AD Knight, they have developed a system that performs monitoring using Bluetooth, cellular and wi-fi sensors, without compromising the privacy of the residents.

Both of these developments make it possible to gather a great deal of information about what is happening on the road, bike paths and sidewalks.

SkyLinX is working on the development of autonomous logistics complexes for urban gliders, which will allow, among other things, the safe transfer of cargo by air.

As befits a business park where these breakthroughs are routine, an innovative parking system has been installed in the park parking lot which is designed to significantly facilitate the process of finding parking by updating real-time parking availability.

The system will operate from the end of the month and allow non-contact entry for subscribers, depending on the period we are in, which forces a reduction in contact.

"Israel is becoming the technological development locomotive for the automotive world," says Omar Wilf, founder and owner of Invis, which is developing a three-dimensional camera for autonomous vehicles and is on the way to issuance. "In a world where Tesla is worth almost the sum of all automotive companies in the world, .

If Israel knows how to continue to push the technologies in this world, it will be able to enjoy a tremendous economic momentum. "

Produced by the Department of Special Supplements