The Institute of Advanced Research in Artificial Intelligence (IARAI) GmbH, registered at Landstraßer Hauptstraße 5, 1030 Vienna, Austria (“Organizer”) organizes several online discussion forums, a range of data analysis competitions, and related physical meetings with the main purpose of scientific education and exchange.
In order to participate in the skills based Traffic4Cast competitions, including the forums, and/or related personal meetings, if any (“Competition”), you must first accept these Terms and Conditions (“Terms”). If after reading these Terms, you decide not to accept them, please do not confirm acceptance. If you accept these Terms, you will declare that you have read and understood these Terms and agreed to them.
1. Initial Provisions
1.1 These Terms specify the rules and process for conducting the Competitions organized by the Organizer.
1.2 For each competition, the Organizer might organize a symposium in order to present the winning solutions of the Competition (“Symposium”) in which case the winners will be notified accordingly; the costs related to the Symposium will be borne by the Organizer at its discretion.
2. Conditions of Participation
2.1 The Competitions are intended for natural persons who, at the time of registering for participation in the Competition, meet the following criteria:
a) are at least thirteen (13) years of age or if they are under thirteen (13) years of age, or at least thirteen (13) years of age but are considered a minor where they live, they have their parent or legal guardian accept their registration on their behalf; anyone completing the registration must be legally competent
b) have created a user account with the Organizer; and
c) have read the content of these Terms, accepted their provisions and agreed to participate in a Competition as described on the website https://www.iarai.ac.at/traffic4cast (“Organizer’s Website”).
Competitions are open to residents of all countries, except for residents of Iran, Crimea, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, Cuba, Russia and Belarus and any other countries which are subject to EU and/or US sanctions not allowing participation in the Competitions.
2.2 The Organizer’s employees who are directly involved in the work related to the Competitions and members of their families, as well as employees of HERE Global B.V./its affiliates and members of their families, are prohibited from participating in the Competitions. Family members shall mean ascendants, descendants, siblings, spouse’s siblings, spouse’s parents, relatives in the sideline to the first degree and persons in the adoption or marriage ratio.
2.3 Participation in the Competitions is free and voluntary.
3. Protection of Personal Data
3.1 The personal data of participants to the Competitions (“Participants”) is collected by the Organizer, in order to process the registration, to organize and manage the Competitions and provide information about related events or events organized by the Organizer in the future.
3.2 With the acceptance of these Terms, the Participants consent to and expressly authorize the Organizer to use their personal data for the above purposes and transfer their data to partners or sponsors of the Organizer for the purpose of the Competition.
3.3 Participants accept that their identity can be published on the Organizer’s Website in connection with a Competition such as on leaderboards or submission indices. Should a prize be won, it can also be published on the Organizer’s Website to announce the recipient of the respective prize.
3.4 Participants can exercise their rights of access, rectification, cancellation and opposition by sending a certified letter or email to the Organizer, clearly indicating the right exercised.
4. Competition Rules
4.1 In order to participate in a Competition, applicants must register by accepting these Terms as described on the Organizer’s Website.
4.2 During a Competition, Participants can work individually or in teams (hereinafter “Team”), unless Competition specific rules specify otherwise.
4.3 The Organizer reserves the right to limit the number of entries submitted to the Competitions.
4.4 During the Competitions, Participants will work on any of the challenges described in detail on the Organizer’s Website (“Competition Challenges”).
4.5 For each Competition, the prizes or distinctions specified in the Terms will be awarded to the Participants who, in accordance with these Terms, will present the best competition entries in the jury’s opinion.
4.6 Participants who participate in the Symposium (if organized) will present their solutions to the public.
4.7 Ideas or contributions whose presentation, execution or development is susceptible to infringe the law and/or violate the rights of third parties will not be admitted. Contributions that promote violence or discrimination based on sex, age, beliefs, ideology or any other reason will not be accepted either.
4.8 In the event a Participant or a Team violates the provisions of the Terms and/or applicable law, the Organizer will have the right to disqualify the Participant or the respective Team.
Specific Rules for ‘Traffic4cast Competition 2019’
4.9 Competition Challenges, announced on the Organizer’s Website, will include, at a minimum, the core challenge of forecasting the accuracy of traffic map movie predictions as measured by the mean squared error of the submitted future pixel values for 3 images (corresponding to a prediction of 15min into the future). Further details are specified in the Evaluation section of the Organizer’s Website.
4.10 The active phase of the Competition will commence at 00:00 CET on June 1, 2019 and will last until 00:00 CET on October 15, 2019 (hereafter referred to as “Submission Deadline”). From 00:00 CET on July 1, 2019 until the Submission Deadline, Participants can provide their predictions to be compared with a withheld data set that will be scored, to be used for updating the leader-board published on the Organizer’s Website at a frequency and level of service provision announced by the Organizer on the Organizer’s Website.
4.11 Participants are tasked with creating a solution during the Competition. All proposed solutions and case studies should be built based on the traffic map movie data provided by the Data Provider (“Data Sets”) or any other data the Organizer makes available for Competition Challenges via the Organizer’s Website to all Participants.
4.12 HERE Global B.V. is the “Data Provider” for this Competition. In order to work on Competition Challenges, Participants must download the Data Sets from the Data Provider’s website and accept the applicable terms and conditions. The Organizer will specify the link to the Data Provider’s website on the Organizer’s website. Participants may use publicly available programming libraries and are required to use their own equipment during the Competition.
4.13 The Competition will be conducted according to the following schedule:
(i) Competition start: June 1, 2019
(ii) Ability to submit solutions for scoring at announced frequency and service level: from July 1, 2019
(iii) Submission Deadline: October 15, 2019
(iv) Announcement of awards: by October 31, 2019.
4.14 After 15 October 2019 the Competition continues in a phase without awards, where Participants can still submit predictions to be compared with a withheld data set that will be scored for the leader-board published on the Organizer’s Website at a frequency and level of service provision announced by the Organizer on the Organizer’s Website. This phase and the leaderboard can be closed, terminating Competition at the discretion of the Organizer.
Specific Rules for ‘Traffic4cast Competition 2020’
4.15 Competition Challenges, announced on the Organizer’s Website, will include, at a minimum, the core challenge of forecasting the accuracy of traffic map movie predictions as measured by the mean squared error of the submitted future pixel values for 6 images (corresponding to a prediction of 5,10,15,30,45,60min into the future). Further details are specified in the Evaluation section of the Organizer’s Website.
4.16 The active phase of the Competition will commence at 00:00 CET on June 1, 2020 and will last until 00:00 CET on October 1, 2020 (hereafter referred to as “Submission Deadline”). From 00:00 CET on July 1, 2020 until the Submission Deadline, Participants can provide their predictions to be compared with a withheld data set that will be scored, to be used for updating the leader-board published on the Organizer’s Website at a frequency and level of service provision announced by the Organizer on the Organizer’s Website.
4.17 Participants are tasked with creating a solution during the Competition. All proposed solutions and case studies should be built based on the traffic map movie data provided by the Data Provider (“Data Sets”) or any other data the Organizer makes available for Competition Challenges via the Organizer’s Website to all Participants.
4.18 HERE Global B.V. is the “Data Provider” for this Competition. In order to work on Competition Challenges, Participants must download the Data Sets from the Data Provider’s website and accept the applicable terms and conditions. The Organizer will specify the link to the Data Provider’s website on the Organizer’s website. Participants may use publicly available programming libraries and are required to use their own equipment during the Competition.
4.19 The Competition will be conducted according to the following schedule:
(i) Competition start: June 1, 2020
(ii) Ability to submit solutions for scoring at announced frequency and service level: from July 1, 2020
(iii) Submission Deadline: October 1, 2020
(iv) Announcement of awards: by October 31, 2020.
Specific Rules for ‘Traffic4cast Competition 2021’
4.20 Competition Challenges, announced on the Organizer’s Website, will include, at a minimum, the Core Challenge, the Extended Challenge and the Analysis and Interpretability Challenge. The Core Challenge is to accurately predict future traffic states post-COVID from data pre-COVID as measured by a mean squared error derived metric as outlined on the Organizer’s Website. The Extended Challenge is to accurately predict traffic states from only few data samples prior to each prediction period in cities for which no other data has been provided by the Data Provider, again as outlined in detail on the Organizer’s Website. The Analysis and Interpretability Challenge asks participants to address questions on the analysis and interpretability of traffic predictions, on the metrics and task formulation as well as questions on traffic representation and data, as described in detail on the Organizer’s Website.
4.21 The active phase of the Competition will commence at 23:59 CET on June 15, 2021 and will last until the submission deadline of all open Competition Challenges. From 23:59 CET on June 15, 2021 until 23:59 CET on October 14, 2021, Participants can provide their predictions for the Core Challenge and Extended Challenge to be compared with a withheld data set that will be scored, to be used for updating the leader-boards published on the Organizer’s Website at a frequency and level of service provision announced by the Organizer on the Organizer’s Website. The active phase of the Analysis and Interpretability challenge commences 10:00 CET on December 10, 2021 and ends with its submission deadline at 23:59 CET on May 31, 2022. Participants can submit their work as a scientific paper submission potentially with accompanying code as outlined on the Organizer’s Website. The Organizer’s Website will publish an index of such submitted work.
4.22 Participants are tasked with creating a solution for each challenge during the Competition. All proposed solutions and case studies should be built based on the traffic map movie data provided by the Data Provider (“Data Sets”) or any other data the Organizer makes available for Competition Challenges via the Organizer’s Website to all Participants.
4.23 HERE Global B.V. is the “Data Provider” for this Competition. In order to work on Competition Challenges, Participants must download the Data Sets from the Data Provider’s website and accept the applicable terms and conditions. The Organizer will specify the link to the Data Provider’s website on the Organizer’s website. Participants may use publicly available programming libraries and are required to use their own equipment during the Competition.
4.24 The Competition will be conducted according to the following schedule:
(i) Competition start with the Core Challenge and the Extended Challenge: June 15, 2021
(ii) Ability to submit solutions to the Core Challenge and Extended Challenge for scoring at announced frequency and service level: from June 15, 2021
(iii) Submission Deadline for the Core Challenge and Extended Challenge: October 14, 2021
(iv) Announcement of awards for the Core Challenge and the Extended Challenge: by November 5, 2021.
(v) Start of the Analysis and Interpretability Challenge: December 10, 2021
(vi) Submission Deadline for the Analysis and Interpretability Challenge: May 31, 2022
(vii) Announcement of awards for the Analysis and Interpretability Challenge: by 31 July 2022.
Specific Rules for ‘Traffic4cast Competition 2022’
4.25 Competition Challenges, announced on the Organizer’s Website, will include, at a minimum, the Core Challenge. Additional Extended Challenges may be announced and published on the Organizer’s Website during the active phase of the Competition. The Core Challenge is to accurately predict for three cities the congestion classes known from the red, yellow, or green colouring of roads on a common traffic map for the entire road graph 15min into the future.
4.26 The active phase of the Competition will commence at 23:59 CET on July 27, 2022 and will last until the submission deadline of all open Competition Challenges. From 23:59 CET on July 27, 2022 until 11:59AM CEST on October 24, 2022. Starting August 19, 2022 at 23:59 CET Participants can provide their predictions for the Core Challenge. The submitted predictions are compared with a withheld data set that will be scored for updating the leader-boards published on the Organizer’s Website at a frequency and level of service provision announced by the Organizer on the Organizer’s Website.
4.27 Participants are tasked with creating a solution for each challenge during the Competition. All proposed solutions and case studies should be built based on the data provided by each Data Provider (“Data Sets”) or any other data the Organizer makes available for Competition Challenges via the Organizer’s Website to all Participants plus optionally any other open data that publicly available and that is free to be used by all Participants for this Competition.
4.28 HERE Global B.V. is a “Data Provider” for this Competition. In order to work on Competition Challenges, Participants must download required Data Sets from this Data Provider’s website and accept the applicable terms and conditions. The Organizer will specify the link to this Data Provider’s website on the Organizer’s website. Participants may use publicly available programming libraries and are required to use their own equipment during the Competition.
4.29 Additional required Data Sets for the Competition Challenges are based on data provided by the Data Providers OpenStreetMap Foundation, Madrid City Council (Spain), Department of Transport in the State of Victoria (Australia), Transport for London and Highways England (United Kingdom). The Organizer itself is not a Data Provider under these terms. All the Data Sets permit open usage and re-publication of the data, the licence details for each Data Set are provided. The Data Sets are pre-processed in order to make them easily usable in the Competition and can be downloaded from the Organizer’s Website. By downloading the data, Participants enter into a separate license agreement with the respective Data Provider. It is noted that not the Organizer itself, but all participants are individually and personally licensees of the Data Providers. The issuance of sublicenses or comparable contracts by the Organizer is explicitly excluded.
4.30 The Organizer bears no responsibility for the use by the participants of any Data provided by the Data Providers. Particularly, the Organizer explicitly disclaims any liability for any damage caused by the use of such Data by the participants. The Organizer only provides access to the Data provided by the Data Providers but assumes no responsibility for their content.
4.31 The Competition will be conducted according to the following schedule:
(i) Competition start with availability of full training data for the Core Challenge: July 27, 2022
(ii) Provisioning of test data and ability to submit solutions to the Core Challenge for scoring at announced frequency and service level: August 19, 2022
(iii) Availability of additional training and test data for the Extended Challenge with ability to submit solutions for scoring at announced frequency and service level: September 2, 2022
(iv) Submission Deadline for the Core Challenge and Extended Challenge: October 24, 2022
(v) Announcement of awards for the Core Challenge and the Extended Challenge: by November 5, 2022.
5. Awards
5.1 Competition entries will be evaluated by the jury composed of the Organizer’s organization committee as stated on the Organizer’s Website. The core Competition Challenge will be solely evaluated on the provided metric (as described on the Organizer’s Website), but other challenges, if they are not based on purely numerical decision making, will be judged by the jury at its sole discretion.
5.2 Competition entries for challenges that are not subject to a clear numerical metric will be evaluated according to the following criteria: a) Innovation and attractiveness of the solution, b) Generalizability of the approach and c) Elegance.
5.3 A jury will nominate a selection of Participants/Teams on merit to the Symposium (if organized).
5.4 The Organizer provides prizes to the winners of each Core Challenge and Extended Challenge of the Traffic4cast 2022 Competition as follows:
a) 1st place voucher or cash prize worth 5,000€ to the Participant/Team and one free NeurIPS 2022 conference registration (virtual only pass);
b) 2nd place a voucher or cash prize worth 3,000€ to the Participant/Team and one free NeurIPS 2022 conference registration (virtual only pass);
c) 3rd place a voucher or cash prize worth 2,000€ to the Participant/Team and one free NeurIPS 2022 conference registration (virtual only pass).
5.5 The Organizer may award additional prizes to the Participants/Teams.
5.6 The decisions of the jury are final and cannot be appealed. The jury can recommend to split a prize between similarly performing teams.
5.7 The Organizer is not responsible for any taxes, customs charges or other costs required for or related to receiving a prize. Each winner is required to independently declare and pay any applicable taxes and charges that a prize gives rise to in the respective jurisdiction.
6. Intellectual Property Rights
6.1 Participants shall be the owners of all intellectual property rights to works created during the Competition. Unless otherwise agreed between the Participants and each Data Provider, Participants are permitted to use the Data Sets as outlined in the license condition of each Data Provider. Participants shall license the Competition submissions and the source code used to generate the Competition submissions under an Apache 2.0 License (https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt) that in no case (i) limits commercial use of such code or model containing or depending on such code and (ii) violates the intellectual property rights of any third party. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Participants are permitted to publish articles and documentation regarding their Competition submissions in academic and scientific publications under terms that are common for the purposes of such publications, whereas they shall publish their Competition submissions on https://arxiv.org/. The Participants shall further comply with all requirements set by each Data Provider in the license governing use of the Data Sets.
6.2 Participants declare that the solution submitted during the Competition is their authorship and does not violate any rights of third parties. Participants also declare that they assume full and unlimited liability for any claims of third parties directed against the Organizer, arising in connection with the Participants’ performance or activity related to the Competition Challenge.
7. Image rights
7.1 By participating in the Symposium (if organized), Participants grant the Organizer permission to record their image on photographic and video materials for promotional purposes for an indefinite period of time, without restrictions and without remuneration. The Organizer shall also have the right to publish and publicly display through different communication channels (including press releases and entries in blogs and other channels such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.) the images of Participants and other Competition information for any purpose, without any financial compensation to the Participants.
8. Cancellation of the Competition
The Organizer reserves the right to cancel or modify the Competition.
9. Risks and Liability
9.1 During the Symposium (if organized), Participants shall not be under the influence of alcohol or drugs and they shall do their best to avoid the possibility of being injured. Participants commit to carefully consider the risks inherent in any activity in which they choose to participate and to take reasonable precautions before attending the Symposium. Participants understand that their attendance at the Symposium will be voluntary and they will undertake to assume responsibility for any resulting injury to the maximum extent permitted by applicable laws.
9.2 Participants hereby release, waive, exempt and agree not to sue the Organizer and their respective parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, directors, officers, partners, shareholders, members, agents, employees, distributors, sponsors and volunteers for any claim, demand, right of action, damage, loss or expense (including procedural costs and reasonable legal fees) that may arise or result from their participation in the Competition and attendance at the Symposium (if organized), except in case of gross negligence of the Organizer.
9.3 Participants agree to hold harmless the Organizer, its parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents and representatives, from any and all claims or demands made by third parties, related to their participation in the Competition.
10. Interpretation
10.1 Any doubt or discrepancy arising from the application or interpretation of these Terms during the Competition, will be resolved ultimately by the Organizer. The Terms are governed by the laws of Austria without giving effect to conflict of laws provisions. Depending on the place of Participants’ residence, additional local rules and regulations may apply. Sole venue will be in the courts of Vienna, Austria.
11. Final Provisions
11.1 The Organizer reserves the right to change the Terms. The Competition may be subject to additional terms specified on the Organizer’s Website.
11.2 The Organizer will inform the Participants about the change of the Terms by electronic means and will place the Terms in the new wording on the Organizer’s Website.
11.3 These Terms are published on the Organizer’s Website.