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

  • Driving too fast in the US
    January 24, 2020
    Too many drivers in the US drive too fast for the conditions.
    Read More
  • ERIC 2016: What shape the ‘Smart Road’?
    February 7, 2017
    Optimism about the future of highways worldwide abounded at the inaugural European Road Infrastructure Conference (ERIC) in Leeds, UK Around 500 delegates passed through the varied sessions during the three-day event at the Royal Armouries Museum in the northern English city of Leeds. They came away with many visions of what a motorway and road could look like. But what speakers at the event - co-organised by the Brussels-based European Union Road Federation (ERF) and the UK’s Road Safety Markings Ass
    Read More
  • ERIC 2016: What shape the ‘Smart Road’?
    February 7, 2017
    Optimism about the future of highways worldwide abounded at the inaugural European Road Infrastructure Conference (ERIC) in Leeds, UK. Around 500 delegates passed through the varied sessions during the three-day event at the Royal Armouries Museum in the northern English city of Leeds. They came away with many visions of what a motorway and road could look like. But what speakers at the event - co-organised by the Brussels-based European Union Road Federation (ERF) and the UK’s Road Safety Markings Associat
    Read More
  • SWARCO’s sustainable SOLIDPLUS glass beads
    February 1, 2023
    Since last year, SWARCO’s SOLIDPLUS next generation of glass beads have been made in one of the most state-of-the-art and efficient facilities for the production of reflective glass beads.
    Read More

Highlighted Content