UK transport AI company Vivacity Labs has released a new solution to support local authorities in their efforts to increase uptake in active travel as the public begins to return to work during the Covid-19 crisis.
The system allows authorities to not only count cyclists, but also to understand interaction patterns, such as dangerous undertaking manoeuvres or cyclists using pavements.
Using the same underlying video analytics technology as autonomous vehicles to understand what is happening on the roads, it extracts anonymous insight on behaviour at complex junctions, examining the number of cyclists and other vehicles using junctions from different directions.
According to the company, this will enable authorities to improve their understanding of how cyclists are using existing infrastructure, supporting future improvements.
“We have installed sensors for cycling with authorities from Oxford to Cambridge, London to Manchester,” said Vivacity CEO Mark Nicholson.
“However, the holy grail of understanding not just counts of cyclists but also behaviours, interactions, and turning movements has always been just out of reach.
“With this new tool becoming available now, authorities can plan safety interventions much more effectively.”
The Department for Transport has said that authorities should monitor and evaluate any temporary measures they install, with a view to making them permanent, and embedding a long-term shift to active travel as the nation moves from restart to recovery.
A number of councils across the UK are using Vivacity’s technology, with projects ranging from monitoring of air quality and active travel uptake in Manchester through to pedestrian and cyclist intervention outside schools in Bournemouth.
Vivacity has also helped with the redesign of road junction in Cambridge into a mini ‘Holland style’ roundabout providing cyclists with priority.
Read more from CiTTi
https://www.cittimagazine.co.uk/tfl-using-ai-to-help-plan-new-cycle-routes/
https://www.cittimagazine.co.uk/uk-government-funding-trial-projects-to-reduce-congestion/
