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The Problem:

Modern American cities have been designed almost exclusivly for cars.

For Decades, the DOT has followed the 80/20 rule, meaning that highways get 80 percent of funds, while public transit and active transit only split the remaining 20.
87 percent of daily trips in the US take place in personal vehicles. - U.S. D.O.T.
Approximately 53,000 deaths are linked to emissions from vehicles each year in the USA.

Tides are turning.

There's been a notable increase in funding for biking and walking infrastructure in the USA, particularly driven by the Bi-partisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). The BIL allocated over $6 billion in new federal funding to state and local projects specifically aimed at improving walkability.
Most trips (52%) made are under three miles. This is within the range for biking and walking to be effective options (Active Transportation). - U.S. D.O.T.
Between 2000 and 2014, the number of people who biked to work increased by 60%, according to the Census Bureau. This is a trend that was negatively impacted by the pandemic and rise of remote work but is once again accelerating.

What is preventing adoption of active transit?

Primary research

We need to understand what key pain points are preventing people from adopting active transit. In order to do this, I started by conducting preliminary interviews and then creating mock journey maps. The people here are based on real individuals’ experiences, but with false personas. According to 12 of my 13 interviews, a key hesitancy was showing up to work/class sweaty. Percived safetey was also a key reason for 9 people.

Secondary research

I looked at all of the studies that I could find around walkability and the implications of their findings. I created this chart that can help visualize the overlap between the studies on walkability as well as their limitations. I found that very few studies considered human factors such as noise, shade, and temperature when discussing walkability and instead focused mainly on proximity data.

Service Value Proposition:

Rating comfort during active transit could help us better identify and address the pain points that people experience.

What does that look like, and how can we do it?

A small device could be attached to active transit such as bikes and scooters to gather the data. In order to do that, I determined it needed to be able to measure noise pollution, localized temperature, shade, and GPS based upon earlier research. I would then also have to come up with a way of visualizing this data in order to best communicate findings.

The device needed to:

Incorporate sensors to measure localized Human Comfort Factors.
Communicate data back to a centralized server.
Be small and un-obtrusive to users.
Operate on low power.
Be as low maintenance as possible.

Presenting the Idea at SDN Berlin 2023!

Testing the device.

Collecting data

The greatest challenge was figuring out how to create a solution that could scale, while still delivering the data back to a centralized server. Here is a mock system that would allow the current device to scale.

Device gathers data from sensors as it moves around town.

Data collected by gateways when bike is close enough for a transfer (~1km).

Server stores data until it is called upon by a GIS mapping tool like Carto.

First test on my bike

Now that I had a device capable of logging the data, it was time to get sample data and show how it could help stakeholders gain meaningful insights. I attached the device to my bike and biked around my community, logging data about the human comfort around me in Savannah, Georgia, USA.

Implementation

Ecosystem map

GIS Software

Server

Gateway

Device

Device (Micro Controller with sensors)

Temp

GPS

Light Level

Humidity

Sound (Db)

Air Quality

UI/UX mock up

Here is an example of what that could look like using publicly available E-bike usage data in my home town. Although this data only shows volume, being able to toggle other overlays related to human comfort could provide huge value in understanding what parts of our cities need to change.

The project is ongoing

Initially, I really wanted to launch the project as a start-up, but without a large amount of capitol (both human and financial) I have found the project better as a passion project. I have enjoyed the journey and picked up many skills allong the way!