How traffic sensors and cameras are transforming city streets

How traffic sensors and cameras are transforming city streets

Authorities in the southeast of England are working with a subsidiary of infrastructure giant Ferrovial to trial sensors that will monitor and analyze traffic, in another sign of how tech is being used as a tool to inform decisions about how the towns and cities we live in function.

In a statement at the end of last week, Kent County Council explained its trial with Amey centered around the installation of 32 sensors that can identify who or what is using the road.

The technology, from a firm called Vivacity Labs, can distinguish between cars, bicycles, buses and pedestrians while recording their speeds and counting the number being used.

The sensors will be installed at a number of locations within the county, including the town center of Dover, a port and major transport and logistics hub which connects the U.K. to the European Union.

There, the sensors will be used to "monitor pedestrian, cycle, car, motorcycle, HGV and bus movements in and around the town of Dover, including the impacts of Brexit on port-related traffic."

Elsewhere, "multiple sites" around the towns of Faversham and Tonbridge will use the sensors to check for compliance with a newly introduced speed limit of 20 miles per hour.

The trial