Author: Michael Ger / Source: The Next Web
The flurry of anti-dockless electric scooter headlines reached critical mass last summer. “This town seriously hates electric scooters,” screamed the link to a story focused on Santa Monica, Calif. “San Francisco Is Fighting the Scooter Trend With Poop and Vandalism,” blared another.
There’s even an Instagram account devoted to images of destroyed rideshare scooters. And, of course, “bike share” bashing is old news by now.
Chalk it up to predictable, initial backlash to disruptive technologies.
The ironic truth is that these nontraditional two-wheeled machines are redefining urban transportation and – along with ongoing innovations in autonomous vehicles and evolving connected-city technologies – will dramatically influence the re-engineering of city infrastructures to address such issues as traffic congestion, commuter safety, energy usage, and how to maneuver through the “last mile.”New data types and sources breed new traffic solutions
Dockless electric scooters and bike shares – both electric and traditional human-powered machines – are, after all, Internet of Things (IoT) devices. They – and the riders’ smartphones that activate them – continuously generate data from integrated sensors which are transmitted to the systems of the companies that own them. Information regarding the location of each connected bicycle, how long each ride takes, which docks need to be restocked, and which ones are full is always available in real time.
New York’s Citi Bike makes its system data publicly available and invites developers, engineers, and statisticians to use it for analysis, development, and visualization. The more open we make these technologies and data, the more we’ll be able to make better decisions related to transportation and municipal infrastructures.
The idea is continuously streamed data collected from connected bikes and scooters will become integral components of a fully functional and responsive interconnected grid that can process big data unprecedented in its volume, velocity, and variability.
This grid will also serve as the hub for similar mobility…
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