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Faster planning permission with Rule AI: Thuringia automates the substantive assessment
The Thuringian Ministry for Digital Affairs and Infrastructure (TMDI) has selected the Rulemapping Group as its solution partner for the AI pilot project aimed at speeding up building permit procedures. Under this project, building applications will be automatically checked for completeness, jurisdictional responsibility and compliance with planning regulations – with all relevant authorities and specialist departments integrated digitally. The project is based on rule-based decision trees (Rulemaps), which translate natural-language laws into machine-readable decision logic, thereby enabling transparent, legally compliant decisions through the dedicated use of AI.
Challenge
Building permit procedures are often complex, time-consuming and, to date, not fully automated. At the same time, there is political pressure to speed up planning and approval procedures, to remove bureaucratic hurdles – and, quite specifically: to establish the digital building application on a nationwide basis. To achieve this, complex building and planning regulations must be applied to a wide range of building projects – in a legally compliant, transparent and seamless manner.
Solution
The Rulemapping Group enables the automated end-to-end digitisation of planning permission processes. This allows building applications to be automatically checked for formal and substantive compliance and assessed in terms of planning law. The basis for this is a hybrid architecture comprising decision trees based on legal logic and AI – known as “Rule AI”. It ensures legally compliant, transparent review processes and enables automated decisions whilst maintaining quality assurance through the “human-in-the-loop” approach.
Impact
The project makes a concrete contribution to the acceleration of planning and approval procedures, as enshrined in the coalition agreement. In close cooperation with the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the EfA solution “Digital Building Permit”, synergies are being created for cross-state further development. Scientific support from the Technical University of Munich and Schmalkalden University of Applied Sciences strengthens confidence in the legal and technical feasibility of automated review processes and lays the foundation for nationwide scaling.
