The city of Colorado Springs, CO is installing 26 multi-modal sensors in its downtown corridor to collect foot and vehicle traffic data.
The sensors, also called multimodal counters, detect and categorize moving objects -such as pedestrians, bicycles, cars, trucks, and buses – but do not collect personally identifiable information. Each moving object is counted with information on direction of travel, date, time stamp, and mode of transportation.
The sensors are provided by Numina, which states that it specializes in the computer vision-sensor solution to measure where and how things move at street level: “intelligence without surveillance.”
The collected data is expected to benefit stakeholders, including: downtown businesses, and the city’s departments of traffic engineering, economic development, planning, and parks – all with the goal of improving city life for residents and visitors.
“Stakeholders expressed their desire to collect better data on how many people are traveling through these areas of the city and how people are getting there,” Colorado Springs Office of Innovation Manager, Carlos Tamayo said.
The plan is to move sensors to new locations after one year for a total of seven to 10 years, which is the lifespan of the technology.
“The city needs more multimodal data for traffic operations, the ability to provide data to potential and current businesses, and for gaining general knowledge about the use of public parks, trails, and public rights of way,” said Tamayo. “We hope that the sensors enable many data-driven decisions to be made for each of our stakeholders through the years.”