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Mobility by Colas: leading the way in the use of digital innovation

06.12.2022

Combining the traditional know-how of an internationally renowned road builder with the world of digital and new technologies, Mobility by Colas is broadening the traditional approach of reduced mobility to transport to a mobility service logic. And it is imposing its trademark with its expertise in digital technology and AI for regional development. Explanations.

Because today's mobility is about more than just physical infrastructure, Mobility by Colas is investing in the field of digital technology to facilitate the mobility of users, goods and merchandise on a daily basis through a digital approach. To this end, Mobility by Colas is piloting an ecosystem of technological and service partners to enable better use of public space. ANAIS is one of the three digital approaches that promote safe mobility through optimized and preventive management of road assets. ANAIS identifies alert or near-accident zones using data embedded in equipped vehicles. It helps road managers choose the most appropriate work to be carried out on infrastructures and check whether user safety has improved after intervention in these alert zones.

Migrate to a new database

All the reliability of ANAIS is based on the considerable amount of data collected and by their processing and valorisation. Behind this business service, is obviously the mastery at Mobility by Colas of the use of new technologies and the best IT architectures allowing a quality of services proposed to our public customers.

For example, the data collected and anonymized is saved in secure databases, then analyzed to provide recommendations to road managers. In order to improve the efficiency of the system, a NoSQL database (adapted to megadata) was selected to replace the pre-existing mongo DB architecture; the choice fell on Azure Cosmos DB, a new PaaS (Platform as a Service, i.e. an environment in the cloud) tool developed by Microsoft.

After a smooth migration to the new system, the performance gain jumped (+30% speed for the most common requests) with a 60% saving on operating costs. For Sylvain LEVENE, software architect at Mobility by Colas, this migration has nothing but advantages: "Previously, we had a problem of time spent on maintenance, tracking upgrades and versions - time that didn't allow us to directly bring added value to our customers. By leaving this maintenance to the cloud managers (and therefore to Azure), our energy is more focused on the customer and on the promised quality of service." Customization also requires focusing on the essentials!