Bluecity's lidar sensors and Bluecity iQ platform work together to provide traffic data analytics for urban planners, consulting firms and any organization that wants to collect and analyze traffic data. The company was founded on a desire to improve traffic safety and this passion is the driving force behind its intelligent solutions. So, it should be no surprise that Bluecity supports the Vision Zero initiative.
For those who may not know, Vision Zero is a global road traffic safety project started in Sweden in the 1990s. Its strategy is to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe and equitable mobility for all. Vision Zero has been successful in Europe and has been gaining traction in North America.
For a long time, traffic deaths and injuries have been seen as inevitable because people make mistakes. Vision Zero believes that road system and their policies should be designed so that those mistakes do not result in deaths or severe injury.
A commitment to Vision Zero includes a multidisciplinary approach that includes transportation professionals, policymakers, public health officials, police, and community members because there are many factors that contribute to safe transportation. Some of these include roadway design, speeds, behaviours, technology, and policies. Part of Vision Zero’s strategy is the collection, analysis, and use of data to understand trends and potential impacts of traffic deaths on certain populations.
The collection of traffic data is where Bluecity can make a big difference. Lidar technology can have an impact on the cost and effort it takes to collect traffic data while artificial intelligence can increase the amount of data collected and improve the analysis of that data. Bluecity’s products provide safety metrics and analytics that can provide amazing insight into whether a particular intersection is dangerous.
In the past, to know whether an intersection is dangerous, cities would have to look at accident data and try to determine why the accidents occurred based on limited data from police reports. They could decide to use video to record the traffic at an intersection for a few hours under proper lighting conditions and good weather, and then send the recordings off to be analyzed. Unfortunately, accidents often happen during poor weather and at night, so these accidents would not be recorded.
Now with a solution like Bluecity iQ, you can view traffic data 24/7 and get access to conflict analyses that provide information on near misses, time-to-collision and the speed of the vehicles involved. You can learn which turning directions are dangerous and what part of the intersection is most risky. What’s more, IndiGO’s ability to classify road users provides important insight into not only driver behaviour, but the behaviours of cyclists and pedestrians.
With the ability to collect data regardless of lighting or weather, decisions about road design, traffic light timing, and other factors are better-informed and based on actual data. Bluecity's hope is that better data can reduce the guesswork about why an intersection may be dangerous and reduce or eliminate assumptions. As a supporter of Vision Zero, Bluecity’s goal is to make streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. We envision a world where traffic accidents are rare, driving to work is a pleasure and carbon emissions are reduced. To learn more about Bluecity visit www.bluecity.ai
