What Will Sony's Smart Traffic Trial In Rome Mean For Bikes?
Sony Europe teamed up with Italian energy company Envision to run smart city trials in Rome. When all the pieces of the three trials are connected, this projects goal is to cut down on traffic gridlock, reduce pollution, keep pedestrians safe, and also avoid overcrowding on Romes public busses. Lets take a look. The trials revolve around Sonys IMX500 image sensors, which the company says have artificial intelligence processing functionality baked in. That, Sony is quick to say, means the images captured never leave those sensors, thus alleviating possible privacy concerns. Its unclear how possible it might be for unscrupulous actors to access and retrieve data from those sensors, but since were not AIApart, well let someone else explore that avenue. At any rate, Envision is using these sensors to run three separate trials. One will monitor open parking spaces in real time, and will then notify drivers via a smartphone app where open parking spots exist. This should theoretically cut down on the time drivers spend searching fruitlessly for open parking spaces. Another trial will use these sensors in smart bus shelters which monitor how many people get on and off busses in real time. The datanot the images, but the head countswill be relayed back to the public transit system, so bus scheduling can be more closely aligned with ridership. This way, the public transit system can hopefully avoid overcrowding. The final trial will be used to notify drivers when pedestrians are in crosswalks, and will activate low-latency smart lighting to more brightly illuminate the pedestrians so drivers can see them. The intention here, of course, is to help road traffic avoid crashing into pedestrians. Regarding the parking space trial, its unclear whether these sensors are attuned to motorcycles and scooters. In any case, these trials are set to begin sometime in June, 2021. Its unclear how long theyre intended to run, but it will be interesting to see the results. Hopefully, at least some of these questions will be answered when results are published in the future.