BT has launched a smart cycling trial with 200 volunteers from its Adastral Park R&D campus and surrounding area in Suffolk, UK, with the aim of testing smart IoT-enabled bike lights to improve the cycling experience, the company said in a blog post.
“This innovative use of connected technology helps encourage and protect cyclists locally, with potential to extend this to other parts of the UK,” said John Davies, chief researcher for future b usiness technology at BT.
BT is accomplishing this with the help of smart IoT bike lights designed and built by See.Sense, an innovative start-up that was the winner of the BT Infinity Awards in 2016. The smart bike lights use advanced sensor technology to monitor their environment, reacting by flashing brighter and faster in riskier situations. They also pair with a smartphone app that provides additional connected features for the cyclist including crash detection and theft alerts.
As the 200 volunteer cyclists travel around Adastral Park and Ipswich, the lights will also collect insights on ride conditions encountered by cyclists, including road surface conditions, chosen routes and traffic hotspot areas. The smart lights send information to BT’s IoT Data Hub, allowing BT to combine the anonymised trial data with other factors such as weather.
BT highlighted that this will demonstrate route preferences and reveal the conditions under which people choose not to cycle – helping to identify areas for improvement.
“Using smart technology to better understand the road blocks that face green transportation enables us to prioritise the safety of sustainable means of transport. The smart light sensor trial in Adastral Park and Ipswich is only the beginning of our efforts to improve the cycling experience,” Davies said.
Davies also said that BT is already running similar trials in Manchester, Dublin and Antwerp.
“Over 12 months, we aim to build up a picture of the way people use cycle routes in and around Ipswich which has a large cycling community. Gaining insight and then sharing it back with trialists will enable BT to improve cycling conditions around Adastral Park, BT’s 100 acre global engineering campus. This data will also be useful to Suffolk County Council in assessing opportunities to improve facilities for cycling,” Davies said.
