A great deal of effort goes into the planning and decision making of where to place a crosswalk.
A great deal of effort goes into the planning and decision making of where to place a crosswalk.
The process hinges on the collection of vast amounts of data. Data that sits in the real world, happening daily before our eyes that need to be captured and turned into meaningful insights.
Data such as: At peak hour, do more than 20 pedestrians use the crosswalk?, Do children or elderly people use the crosswalk on a regular basis?
No surprise that pedestrian data collection is a labor-intensive, manual process that can be prone to human error.
We see cities around the world making planning decisions across the full spectrum of public works conducted with the same inefficiencies.
Cities are starting to think about how do we unlock this vast treasure trove of data that will radically overhaul both the speed of execution and raise the effectiveness of public works for residents.
Going forward, cities can look to aggregate, analyze and realize the full benefits of all relevant data to transportation, safety and security, mobility as a service and delivering a high quality level of resident experience.
Where a city has an existing network of traffic cameras, Unleash live can process real-time imagery to remove manual data collection and more importantly, start to implement technologies that adapt and respond to this new real-time environment.
Through the STiR program, the City of Sacramento has embarked on unleashing the cities data.
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Startup in Residence (STIR) program
City Innovate is a nonprofit based out of San Francisco focused on creating collaboration frameworks between Private enterprise and government. With their flagship program “Startup in Residence”, they bridge the gap between the private and public sector, facilitating startups to co-create technology solutions for government.
With nearly 700 startups applying, and only 40 selected through a competitive process, Unleash live’s technology solution was selected to work with the city of Sacramento for automating data collection and insights generation for assessing and prioritizing pedestrian data.
“Smart cities like Sacramento are great examples of how leveraging visual identification and analysis through AI can help build safer environments for our communities,” said Hanno Blankenstein, CEO of Unleash live.
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with the City and expect to share a tremendous amount of insights about how pedestrians use crosswalks and where signage would be most effectively positioned for their safety.”
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The Challenge
The City seeks to collect data in an improved streamlined manner on pedestrian movement at crosswalks throughout the city.
This data will help guide decision making regarding the placement of new crosswalks and assess utilization of existing crosswalks to improve safety for pedestrians. Today, the process of conducting field investigation is labor intensive, manual and could utilize staff resources more efficiently.
Through the use of sensors, other vision technologies, and commercial data sources, the City would like to accomplish the following:
- Automate the data collection process of pedestrian counts at intersections throughout the City
- Enable the City to be more responsive to changing conditions and be better equipped to prioritize pedestrian crossings
Go here for more details of the challenge.
The Program
During a 16 week time frame, the Unleash live team will develop and showcase the solution in partnership with the City of Sacramento where we will work together through iterative rounds of:
Discovery and user research
- Conduct interviews and observation sessions with project teams and city stakeholders
- Share and gain access to data, city resources and citywide video streams
- Determine high priority locations for further investigation and analysis
- Assess compatibility with existing cameras and systems infrastructure
Design
- Define specific use cases and outcomes to benefit the city, stakeholders, and public
- Co-design dashboards for viewing pedestrian count data and insights
- Confirm and set up the placement of cameras at prioritized locations
- Document interaction protocols between Unleash Live and city video sources
Development
- Integrate with existing traffic and city video sources
- Develop tailored A.I. algorithms for counting pedestrians and tracking the flow
- Develop a dashboard with internal analytics teams and software providers
Testing/Deployment
- Continuous testing and refinement of algorithm accuracy
- Collect data from targeted video streams and validate with city stakeholders
- Prepare performance report and populate dashboard for implementation
We will document and share the progress and learnings as we work closely with city Traffic Engineers, Traffic Investigators, Program Specialists, City Planners, and Public Works Department.
To follow the progress of this program, follow us on the Unleash Live blog, Twitter & LinkedIn.
Get in touch to learn more about how Unleash live solves smart city challenges or if you’re seeking opportunities to collaborate as a 3rd party developer, Reseller or Strategic Partner.
Get Started with Unleash live
Visit unleashlive.com to start your free trial or book a time with one of our specialist team members to learn how your business can take advantage of live streaming video and A.I. analytics
