On April 20th, the KNVB Cup Final took place at De Kuip in Rotterdam: AZ versus NEC, a sold-out stadium with over 42,000 visitors. Behind the scenes, Argaleo’s Digitwin platform operated as an operational instrument for real-time crowd monitoring and traffic management. Not as an experiment, but as part of the regular event operation, building on the European research programme AI Compass.
Why crowd monitoring at a cup final?
A cup final brings specific challenges that are less present during regular league matches. Both supporter groups travel from outside Rotterdam, are less familiar with the surroundings, and arrive using different modes of transport. This creates unpredictable traffic flows, varying parking pressure, and concentrations of people in locations that normally do not bear such heavy loads.
Traditionally, this is managed based on experience and fixed operational plans. But at an event of this scale, in a stadium that is not the home ground of either participating club, there are too many variables to rely on experience alone. That is where real-time data becomes essential.
What Digitwin did during the final
During the match, the Digitwin platform operated as an operational dashboard. The system combined multiple data sources into an integrated picture of the situation around and inside the stadium. Specifically, it provided insight into visitor flows in and around De Kuip, parking occupancy across the surrounding areas, traffic intensity on key approach and departure routes, and predictive models for peak loads after the match.
By bringing this information together in a single operational view, traffic controllers, security, and event management could make decisions based on current data rather than assumptions. Not after the fact during the evaluation, but during the event itself.
The context: AI Compass and AI-MAPS
The deployment at the cup final does not stand alone. It is a direct application from the European research programme AI Compass, in which Argaleo collaborates with knowledge institutions and technology partners on responsible AI applications for crowd management and mobility.
Within AI Compass, we develop AI-MAPS: a modular platform that combines AI models for monitoring and predicting visitor flows, parking pressure, and traffic intensity around large-scale events. The platform is designed to learn from each event and make predictions increasingly accurate. The cup final was one of the moments where this technology could be validated under real-world conditions, with real operational pressure and real decisions.
From stadium to festival to city
What worked at the cup final is not limited to football stadiums. The same technology is deployed at festivals, national celebrations, running events, and other situations where large groups of people come together. The underlying models are scalable and adaptable to the type of event, the location, and the available data sources.
Want to learn more about how Digitwin contributes to safe events? Feel free to get in touch.
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Argaleo Digitwin provided real-time crowd monitoring and traffic management during the KNVB Cup Final AZ-NEC at De Kuip. Learn how AI-powered technology contributes to safe events.