Students solve real-world challenges

Several MBZUAI students recently took top honors at the 2022 Dubai Roads and Transport Authority’s (RTA) Transport Hackathon. MBZUAI master’s students Sultan Abu Ghazal and Elnura Zhalieva, along with eight other students made up the first place team.

MBZUAI master’s student Muhammad Uzair Khattak led the second place team. His team submitted a mobile application system called Salem, which aims to monitor the health and safety of motorcycle delivery drivers, and reduce traffic infractions.

The MBZUAI students and their respective teams had the honor of meeting H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum as he presented their awards during a ceremony, which took place at the MENA Transport Congress and Exhibition in Dubai on Sunday, February 6.

The fourth round of the hackathon was held between January 30 and February 1 at the Expo 2020 exhibition, and saw more than 60 students from 21 universities across UAE compete. In total, the RTA presented six current public transport challenges they are facing for students to propose solutions for.

Making scooters safe again 

Abu Ghazal led his team to victory with an innovative system called Scooty—a safety solution for scooter users.

“Our team proposed an app that would monitor adherence to rules such as wearing a helmet, speeding, changing lanes and more. And it also rewarded users with loyalty points,” Abu Ghazal said.

Ghazal’s team also included a regulatory feature in their app, in which the RTA could introduce a scooter license that users obtain from the app. Scooter users would take a safety quiz and perform some scooter driving instructions, either on the phone or virtually in the metaverse, and the app would evaluate their driving habits using the phone’s accelerometer.

Upending the delivery app model

“We built Salem with several technologies, including computer vision and mobile sensors,” Khattak explained. “The app monitors the travel journey of delivery drivers and provides incentives to drivers who adhere to safety rules.”

Khattak and his team members aimed to develop Salem to change the way delivery drivers think by giving incentives and ratings based upon the safety of deliveries rather than the number of deliveries.

“The app records the traffic violation history of each driver, and delivery companies or potential employers can review the statistics of the drivers,” Khattak said. “Salem is planned to be integrated with RTA’s centralized systems and will help in reducing violations among delivery drivers.”

The RTA Transport Hackathon was supported by Cisco, and overseen by specialists and digital technology experts who guided the students in developing their proposed projects.