Taxify and University of Tartu to bring innovation to urban mobility

“The cooperation between Taxify and University of Tartu will be a two-way process. On one hand, Taxify will be able to bring to the table problems that have a direct and daily impact on millions of Taxify users around the world. On the other hand, we’ll be able to immediately implement the solutions worked out together with UT computer scientists to the benefit of our users. We offer unique technical challenges and would like to share the insights gained in the process with the rest of the urban mobility community,” said Rain Johanson, Taxify Head of Engineering.

According to Johanson, some of the projects Taxify and UT will be working on are related to algorithms for improving GPS and maps data quality as well as urban traffic simulators that would enable to improve the accuracy of estimated arrival times and integrate various environmental factors. The cooperation will see UT computer scientists making practical development contributions to Taxify products.

Amnir Hadachi, Team Leader of Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab at UT Institute of Computer Science, said that the most important benefit of the collaboration is shared experience between the industry and UT researchers to create an environment for applied research based on real world applications.

“This collaboration will be good for building a bridge between theory and practice in urban mobility research and smart transportation. The support of a major industry player gives us knowledge for reaching our big goals: to develop an advanced urban mobility platform for smart city concept for a sustainable, smart, comfortable, secure and safe urban environment,” said Hadachi.

He added: “Our collaboration with Taxify is a good example of an international company supporting scientific research and Estonian scientists helping to develop and introduce innovation in a fast-growing Estonian enterprise.”

Taxify currently employs around 500 people globally, with the largest office of 200 people in Tallinn, Estonia, where the company was founded.

University of Tartu is one of the most respectable centres of education and research in Central and Eastern Europe. It belongs to the top 1.2% of world's best universities and is among world’s top 250 universities in the field of Computer Science (THE World University Rankings 2018).