New Smart Street Corners That Will Act Like a Fitbit for the City

There you are, standing on a street corner surrounded by a mob of people waiting for the walk signal. In front of you, a single car gets the green light. Again. For all the talk of smart cities, they can be infuriatingly dumb at times. But imagine if your city could monitor the flow of pedestrians and optimize its traffic signals for walkers, not drivers? That’s exactly what Chicago is looking to do.

Later this fall, the Windy City will install a network of 40 sensor nodes on light poles at the University of Chicago, School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. The goal is to eventually expand the system to 1,000 sensors (enough to cover the Chicago Loop) over the next few years. Spearheaded by the University of Chicago’s Urban Center for Computational Data, it’s called the Array of Things initiative, and the goal is to gather an unprecedented set of ambient data to help government officials and residents understand how their city ticks so they can make it a happier, healthier, and smarter place to live.