It is expected of cities to provide an attractive, but also competitive place to work and live, while managing the needs of all transportation users and meeting the increasing demands of climate, environmental and health protection all at the same time. Not meeting these demands often simultaneously relates to a reduction in the inhabitants’ quality of life. An important component for a high standard of living in cities is mobility, which is one aspect of our institution’s research project, iCity, aimed at developing the intelligent city of the future (read more here about this project).
Imagine you are at the grocery store, but instead of waiting at the cashier to pay, an artificial intelligence (AI) registered the products you took and automatically bills them to your account right after you leave the store. For many years, the shopping process in a supermarket was very similar: customers would take products from shelves, then go to checkout, put the goods on a belt which were scanned by a cashier, and pay. Usually, this process is often associated with waiting times, depending on how busy the store is. With the introduction of self-checkouts, this process has already been optimized through technology. In 2016, Amazon opened the first smart store in Seattle. A smart store completely eliminates the payment process at a cash register (Amazon, 2022). Cameras, sensors and an AI automatically detect which products the customer took from the shelf. The products are paid for using the stored payment data when the customer leaves the store. This smart store concept rather describes the “Grab & Go” technology which includes a walk-in option for customers. While there are a multitude of different concepts used in smart stores, this research focused on said concept as well as an ”Automated Box” concept which refers to a smart store with a fully automated high-bay warehouse. Customers do not select the products inside this particular smart store, but choose their desired products via an app either before or upon their arrival.
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
