How do smart bike lights help cities plan better cycle routes? | With See.Sense in London

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Don’t forget to turn on subtitles!
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Have you ever dreamed about safe bike roads for everyone? In this video, we showcase the work of the London for Transport association, Dott and See.Sense, a cutting-edge cycling technology company that works to gather crucial data that could revolutionize road safety, especially for vulnerable groups like women. Through sensors, See.Sense collects real-time data from cyclists, providing insights based on their riding experiences. From traffic patterns to road conditions, they use this data to shape the future of road infrastructure. Let’s develop a way for safer roads and empower vulnerable groups to confidently navigate our cities on two wheels.

This video was shot in June 2023 in London, UK. Many thanks to Philip McAleese (CEO of See.Sense), Iqbal Ahmed (Senior Policy Manager at Dott), Alex Drake (Data Scientist at TfL) and Kerena Fussell (See.Sense User).

See.Sense website (EN): https://seesense.cc/
The Vision Zero Proof of Concept (POC) mentioned by Alex Drake (EN): https://seesense.cc/blogs/case-studies/how-see-sense-data-insights-helping-tfl-tackle-vision-zero
Transport for London website (EN): https://tfl.gov.uk/
Dott website (EN): https://ridedott.com/

#bike #cyclingsafety #bikelights
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The biggest question that comes up when you ask people why they don’t cycle is because they don’t feel safe, or because they don’t feel  that their bikes are safe. So, there are two things, whether you look at personal security on the road or at the security of your bike. Both of those things are really issues

That stop people from cycling. We know that around 70% of people won’t cycle because they perceive it to be too dangerous. So, we’re helping cities by giving never before seen insights on how people move around our cities using micromobility to help them understand it better to make provision for better infrastructure,

And ultimately to help people transition to make those journeys sustainably. Transport for London is a  London transport authority. We’re not just responsible for the upkeep of the London Underground but we also look after the bus network and the main roads in London. So, that’s also things like thinking about safest junction schemes and cycling infrastructure.

The Vision Zero Proof of Concept (POC) was an innovation fund project. We wanted to understand the  safety on the road network from the point of view of vulnerable road users. So, that includes people riding bikes, micromobility and also using motorcycles. This would help us understand  where any misses were occurring and therefore where risk was highest

To those cycling around the city. We look at, for example, how  they’re braking or swerving any abnormal or braking swerving behaviour gives us some really good insights and clues as to where the journey is not working as efficiently or correctly as it should do. It is really useful for TfL as that will allow us

To identify locations where  we can put interventions. So, that could be from  fixing some of the potholes, introducing cycling infrastructure or even changing the complete layout of the road. One of the great things about See.Sense is we’ve been able to gather so  many partners and so much data.

We installed a number of  See.Sense’s devices on our scooters and within 10 weeks we measured over 1,800 rides and over 8 million sensor readings. These sensor readings help local authorities  prioritise infrastructure investment and help us identify areas for hot spots where there might be collisions in the future.

My understanding of See.Sense is that  it is monitoring the way I’m cycling. It specifically knows that I’m a woman. So, it knows the kind of cycling that I’m doing, it knows when I’m braking, when I’m swerving. It allows me to report problems  along my regular route.

All of those things can only  make a better place for cycling. Female cyclists are the fastest growing  group of people taking the bike. And you can see that on the  streets of London particularly. I think, since the pandemic, numbers of cyclists generally have grown.

But there are definitely more women who want to ride bikes and who are riding bikes but they’re not necessarily feeling that their routes are catered for. So, again, collecting this sort of data, catering for a new growing group can only be a good thing. By getting data on things  like hard braking or swerving,

We can understand how  vehicles are really being used and that also helps dispel some rumours of cities on their fears about our vehicles. We can also help identify hot spots where people are doing  things like pavement riding. Pavement riding is something that cities  are  always worried about when it comes to scooters,

But there’s no good data on it. People have a perception but it’s impossible to   really measure when someone’s on  a pavement or not on a pavement. See.Sense actually helps us gather data and dispel some of these rumours or understand the size of the problem like pavement riding, which  you can’t do right now.

The next steps for TfL are to understand how we can use this data with other information. This gave us really valuable insights on cyclists, but we also want to understand how other public transport users are moving around the network and what risks they may face when they’re moving.

So, what we want to do is take this information and layer it together and then we can identify the predominant risks around the network, who is affected and how we might act to fix it.