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Traffic Behavior and Safety study in Denmark

In many cities, there are places where many road users pass or stay in a complicated network of routes and get into a risky interaction. It can be difficult to get an overview of the whole situation and define the “hot spots” where the traffic behavior is simply non-standard. Our tool Data From Sky is in most cases be able to uncover, sort and analyze all movements of vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians in a larger area and evaluate critical parts of a road network, that might be risky for any traffic participant. This kind of overview and analysis can give traffic and urban planners a very good starting point for designing any adjustments.

The figure below shows an area in the city of Aarhus in Denmark and displays the flow of cyclists (pink trajectories) and pedestrians (green trajectories) in the 2-hour period. The main goal of the analysis is to provide the Aarhus Municipality with an overview of cyclists and pedestrian movement in the analyzed area and identify some patterns in their traffic behavior.

After having formed a detailed overview of all the different flows and routes, author of this study (Birger Villadsen, Traffic Specialist at COWI) has focused on those areas, where cyclists’ and pedestrians’ behavior gets into a collision. The detailed DataFromSky Analysis helped to analyze the problematic spots and draw up proposals for changes, that can help to simplify the traffic flow. Aarhus Municipality will evaluate the list of proposals and test them on the site by making temporary changes and observing whether they have the intended effect before the changes are implemented permanently.

*full article can be found at Cowi Creators blog.

Thursday January 31st, 2019 in News
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DataFromSky in Danish TV!

We are continuously working on traffic behavior analysis of traffic participants in surrounding of schools and kindergartens in Denmark. DataFromSky together with COWI has created another data-rich analysis of traffic behavior nearby a school in Vejle Municipality. The analysis maps traffic near the school during the morning rush hour when many students arrive at school at the same time. It also gives a complex overview, where potential conflicts between cyclists, pedestrians and cars may happen.

Based on the analysis and its outputs, it is easier to formulate some changes which should be adopted by schools to protect the safety of schoolchildren. This analysis can also lead to better decision making done by municipalities, whether to build a new crossing or add some safety features or how it is possible to change an established behavior that is dangerous or inappropriate.

Have a look at the report in the Danish TV SYD.


Trajectories: pedestrian (pink), bicycles (blue), cars (green)


Heatmap showing acceleration of bicycles and pedestrians – displaying possible conflict areas

Wednesday April 18th, 2018 in News
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COWI presents DataFromSky on Transportforum in Sweden

On January 10-11, Transportforum – the Nordic region’s largest annual conference within the transport sector, will be held in Linköping, Sweden. At the conference, researchers and stakeholders meet for knowledge sharing and benchmarking.

COWI, our partner in the Nordic countries, will be present with a stand (number 28) and give several lectures. On Wednesday January 10 at 15:30-17:00 Mathias Sdun, Chief Specialist at COWI, will talk about risks associated with bus stops based on analyses conducted using DataFromSky (read our recent article). Mathias will also explain how DataFromSky analysis can give us detailed information about road user’s behavior before some accidents really happen and thus give us the possibility to act preventively.

For more information click on this link and take a look into the video below, displaying some relevant traffic data.

Monday January 8th, 2018 in News
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Study of bicycle and pedestrian movement in Denmark

John F. Kennedy’s Square in city of Aalborg in Denmark is with the railway station and bus terminal an important traffic hub that connects Aalborg to the surrounding towns and most of the bigger cities in country. With Aalborg Municipality’s desire and strategy to change the habits and move citizens from cars to bicycle and public transport, large space problems have arisen in connection with parking spaces for bicycles. The bike rails are crowded and illegally parked bikes fill up the street scene and create dangerous pedestrian situations.

In order to find the optimal location of bicycle parking facilities, the movement patterns of each traffic participant, especially pedestrians and bicycles, were analyzed using DataFromSky advanced software – see the pictures attached below, representing the trajectories of bicycles (blue) and pedestrians (green). Based on these patterns, detailed data, statistics and trajectories information, COWI has performed a study examining where it will be possible to implement more parking places for bicycles in and around the square, resulting with a proposal for how the space can be furnished – offering more space for bicycle parking and rest areas for pedestrians.
DataFromSky analysis has also resulted in illustrations of average speed of pedestrians in this square. The data were used to design areas where pedestrians typically stop and where there may be a need for seating (e.g. near the bus station), moreover, these information and data are extremely valuable for a safety study in a given zone, which can be adopted by the municipality to make some changes in order to increase the safety of pedestrians and bicycles in analyzed area.
If you are interested in knowing more details and want to read the full study, click on this link.


Bicycles – movement patterns based on trajectories of each bicycle


Pedestrians – movement patterns based on trajectories of each pedestrian in analyzed area

Tuesday December 19th, 2017 in News
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DataFromSky & COWI on Vejforum Event in Denmark

In upcoming days, you have a chance to see DataFromSky solution and its practical use cases and demonstration on an event related to the Road & Transportation. Visit the stand of COWI, our partner for Nordic countries, on Vejforum 2017 event, an exciting conference with the theme “Roads, people and technology”, held between 6. and 7. December 2017 in Hotel Nyborg Strand, Denmark. For more information, visit the event’s website

DataFromSky – the world’s most advanced traffic analysis
It will also be demonstrated how advanced technologies such as computer vision, neural networking and deep learning can be used and implemented in the world’s most advanced software for comprehensive traffic analyzes and also how to utilize this solution to detect the occupancy of a parking lot in real time using an ordinary IP cameras and the AI behind.

One of the topics presented on this event will be the “Accident Portal” – new web-based analysis tool developed by COWI that gives the Danish municipalities completely new opportunities for quickly, efficiently and through a user-friendly interface to work with traffic accidents data. The team of DataFromSky is currently working on a project evaluating the safety of a traffic node to know the potentionally risky situation and detect near accidents and accidents. This feature could be possibly utilized in the Accident Portal mentioned above.

Tuesday December 5th, 2017 in News
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DataFromSky analyzes the traffic safety in school areas

Our solution can be used for tracking not only cars and various vehicles, but also for tracking other objects and traffic participants, for example pedestrians or bicycles. Our partner from Denmark – traffic engineering company COWI – is currently studying and analyzing the behaviour of traffic participants in surroundings of schools and kindergartens in Denmark by using DataFromSky for the analysis. It would provide a new and systematic overview of the situation during the morning peak hour, when many students arrive to school at the same time. More detailed, they are searching for some inappropriate and dangerous behaviour of road users and other participants of the traffic, which includes all the parents driving their children to schools, school buses, bikes, motorbikes, other vehicles passing by the neighbourhood and all the pedestrians. Based on this analysis it is easier to formulate some proposals of changes which should be adopted by schools to protect the safety of schoolchildren. This analysis can also lead to better decision making done by municipalities, whether to build a new crossing or add some safety features etc.

If you want to read more about this analysis and its application, visit this website, where you can find the whole article: https://cowicitycreators.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/hvor-farlig-er-skolevejen-naar-vi-ser-den-fra-luften/#more-2643

An example of mapping the behaviour of traffic users is shown in the pictures below, where different user types have different color and each line shows the traffic flow for one trajectory.

(1.)
(2.)
Picture: Before (1.) and after (2.) changes: Each line shows one trajectory. Pedestrians (blue), cyclists (red), drivers (green).

Tuesday March 28th, 2017 in News
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DataFromSky & COWI – traffic analysis in Copenhagen

DataFromSky in cooperation with COWI is coming with a new traffic analysis from Denmark! As in all other major cities, massive amounts of traffic goes in and out of Copenhagen every day. This leads to congestion and the everlasting discussion on how to effectively move as many people as possible. In Copenhagen, almost 50 percent of all commuting trips are made using bicycles. This results in numerous potential conflicts between bicycles and cars, and the battle for allocating and distributing sheer road surface space between the transport modes is continually on – especially at certain locations, where available space is scarce. One such place is “Christmas Moellers Plads”, an intersection complex connecting inner Copenhagen to the island Amager. Through the use of a specialized UAV and Data From Sky, COWI has obtained a complete 4-hour overview of traffic passing through this complex for both cyclists and motorists – and the interaction between the two. The data extracted now forms the basis for looking into new and better solutions that will keep this people mover perform at its best.

Monday January 30th, 2017 in News
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COWI demonstrates the possibilities of DataFromSky

COWI, an exclusive partner in Denmark and other Nordic countries, nicely demonstrates the possibilities of DataFromSky solution in a new video. In this video, you can see some basic outputs from DataFromSky Viewer such as speed & acceleration data, heatmaps, vehicle types etc. We have an endless list of functions that can be added or improved, so expect more to come!

All commercial use of DataFromSky in the Nordic countries is handled by COWI, and key personnel can be contacted directly:

Wednesday October 5th, 2016 in News
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Read COWI City Creators Blog!

In case you are interested in what COWI is up to, check out COWI city creators. It is a blog by COWI departments of Urban and Traffic Planning. The blog is about “urban planning, transport, architecture and much else that goes on in one of Northern Europe’s largest environments for urban development”.

By the way, a recent post links to publication in Danish magazine GeoForum and highlights the way COWI is thinking about drones: Droner monitorerer traffiken (Drones monitor traffic – Google translate).

Another yet more recent post says One of the world’s most advanced traffic analysis tools landed at COWI. That’s us!

Monday March 21st, 2016 in News
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Partnership with COWI in Nordic countries

RCE Systems and COWI announce a strategic exclusive partnership in the geographic area of Nordic countries – Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland. The partnership focuses on application of information technologies in transportation, particularly use and further development of DataFromSky.

Countries for exclusive partnership

COWI is a leading consulting group with a 360° approach. The Danish company has a long-proven record of success, serving customers from the Nordic countries and the whole world in the field of civil engineering, including traffic analysis. The partnership enables COWI to provide more accurate and comprehensive traffic information and analysis using DataFromSky. Hence, COWI will help DataFromSky grow professionally and reach more markets.

COWI handles all commercial use of DataFromSky in the Nordic countries, and key personnel can be contacted directly:

Press release (PDF)

Monday March 14th, 2016 in News
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