Peachtree Corners near Atlanta has already earned a reputation as a smart city, largely due to its Curiosity Lab innovation center that houses multiple startups focused on the latest technology, often relying on 5G wireless.
Now, the city and Curiosity Lab are working with Upciti to deploy its lightweight, “privacy-by-design” sensor technology that will provide the city information on pedestrian behavior to improve safety and inform long-term planning for public spaces. It is the first deployment of Upciti technology in Georgia. No timeline was announced.
The city hosts more than 80 events annually with 40,000 attendees at its city center. The tech will quantify crowd patterns and identify pedestrian flow in real time. City officials will be able to gain insights for how people move within and around the Town Green, informing them about mobility preferences.
Upciti’s edge computing device features a low-resolution camera to easily detect pedestrians and vehicles without collecting any personally identifiable information like other technologies that employ facial recognition or license plate reader sensors. No faces are captured, no individuals are tracked and no identifiable data is stored, according to Larissa Paredes Muse, strategic relationships manager of Upciti.
Muse said the Upciti system complies with the GDPR standards in effect across European cities to develop resident trust while giving officials valuable insights.
“Community safety is always top of mind for us as we consistently look for ways to make our city safer and smarter,” said Deputy City Manager Seth Yurman. “By analyzing how people move through Town Center, we can design better public spaces, plan more efficiently for events and ensure pedestrian safety in real time.”
T-Mobile’s 5G network in Peachtree Corners will support the high-speed transmission of sensor data with low latency. Upciti has deployed more than 2000 sensors worldwide across 100 projects, including Columbus, Ohio, and Albany, New York. The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Montreuil, France. According to its website, the city of Monaco chose Upciti’s sensors to understand mobility flows with a system that is separate but complimentary to its video surveillance (CCTV) cameras.
Peachtree Corners has been featured in Fierce stories in recent years, including the use of lidar from Seyond and an underground delivery robot with Pipedream.
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