Chicago kicks off the Array of Things project

The first data-collecting sensors as part of a delayed but major roads project have been stationed atop traffic light poles in Chicago. The US city installed two nodes containing computers and sensors including low-resolution cameras as well as air quality sensors, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune newspaper.
September 12, 2016 Read time: 2 mins

The first data-collecting sensors as part of a delayed but major roads project have been stationed atop traffic light poles in Chicago.

The US city installed two nodes containing computers and sensors including low-resolution cameras as well as air quality sensors, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune newspaper.

It is part of the Array of Things project that was supposed to start in 2014. Array is a collaboration between the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. AT&T is the internet provider. The project is backed by $3.1 million from the National Science Foundation.

System software will analyse images to count pedestrians and vehicles and release the data for free on the city of Chicago's Data Portal and the Plenar.io portal. But the portals are still undergoing development, according to the article. The initial objects are to establish traffic and pedestrian patterns, detect flooding during adverse weather and analyse air quality.

However, there could be up to 80 nodes positioned around the city by the end of the year, according to comments by Charlie Catlett, director of the Urban Center and Computation and Data at the University of Chicago and Argonne and a leader of the project. Upwards of 500 could be collecting data by the end of 2018.

Rights groups have expressed concern over ‘big brother is watching you’ issues and the city recently finalised a privacy policy covering some details of how data will be used. The Tribune article noted that there remains issues over what access law enforcement organisations would have to the data.

Highway & Network Management

Related Content

  • Information technology and transport development
    February 16, 2012
    A team of eminent Russian specialists* introduce exciting new information technologies, such as the Internet of Things, and foresee their promising applications in the field of transport infrastructure development
    Read More
  • Hanwha on the Pedemontana Veneta
    November 1, 2022
    The need for a motorway to link the cities of Vicenza and Treviso in northern Italy emerged in the 1970s as the Venetian countryside became increasingly urbanised. Meanwhile, the enlargement of the European Union to the east in the 1990s also brought more traffic across the region
    Read More
  • India’s road to safety
    September 5, 2012
    India's growth rate is the envy of the world, and its infrastructure is rapidly improving, but its road safety record is the world's worst. Patrick Smith reports on a conference aimed at finding answers to the problems Ambling through the gardens and marble magnificence that is the Taj Mahal or gazing down on the city of Jaipur from the hilltop Jaigarh Fort is far removed from the world outside.
    Read More
  • Melbourne to become a plastic road test bed
    August 30, 2023
    According to RMIT - the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology - 10 project sites around the Australian city will use an estimated 21,000kg of recycled plastic.
    Read More

Highlighted Content