VenuesNow (05/25/23) Borba, Ryan

The Indianapolis 500 and technology partner/title sponsor NTT have extended their agreement covering the NTT IndyCar Series, including the 107th running of the Indy 500 on May 28 and the NASCAR Brickyard weekend in August. The partnership began with cameras and software to enhance crowd management, and has matured to include racing analysis. "Our use cases in the beginning started at ingress of fans and helping the operations team that sits in the pagoda [command center tower] at the speedway, having the ability to use artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to count the number of people outside of a gate or amassing outside of a gate," said Bennett Indart, Vice President at Smart World Solutions, NTT. That information, plus real-time data from tickets scanned at the gates, gives track operators a clear view of crowd movement. "For fan engagement and crowd control, the Smart Venue program has achieved what we had originally hoped that it would, allowing fans to be more comfortable and confident in their approach to entering the raceway," Indart explained. "It's been done without having to do a lot of rip and replace; we were able to utilize a lot of data they already had access to." More recent upgrades aim to increase fan interest in the IndyCar Series, with NTT culling more than 40,000 predictions based on vehicle data communicated across NBC's live broadcast and IndyCar social media. The technology also forecasts potential 500 winners. "The most important thing is that [venues and operators] already own their data. We do not take ownership of it. We're stewards of it," Indart said.

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