Artificial intelligence will control the scooter
2023.01.09 02:44
Artificial intelligence will control the scooter
Budrigannews.com – In an effort to lessen the number of pedestrian and rider-related injuries and accidents, electric scooter manufacturers are turning to technology.
E-scooters on pedestrian walkways have been banned in Singapore, France, and Spain due to the severity of the issue. Nearly three out of every five riders were injured while riding on a sidewalk, even in places where it was prohibited, according to a survey of more than 100 riders conducted at an emergency room in Washington, DC.
A system of cameras and sensors has been developed by Swedish operator Voi and Dublin startup Luna to detect the surface on which a scooter is riding and the presence of nearby pedestrians. Voi has over 6 million registered scooter riders in 50 European cities.
The technology functions immediately. An algorithm that has been trained on thousands of images and videos classifies the environment around it while a small camera that is attached to the vertical bar of the e-scooter films the path in front of it.
The scooter can be programmed to respond in a variety of ways using this data.
“As the rider ascends a sidewalk, it could slow down; According to Shahin Ghazinouri, vice president of hardware engineering at Voi, “it could reduce the speed if it detects pedestrians in the pathway… It could give audible warnings to both the rider and the surroundings if the technology detects behavior that we feel is unsafe.”
He adds that the precise response of Voi’s scooters is yet to be determined and will depend on the outcomes of a year-long technology trial that began in Northampton, England, in November.
Footage from an electronic scooter’s camera.
Employees of Voi rode e-scooters outfitted with Luna’s technology during the initial phase of the trial. According to Luna CEO Andrew Fleury, the system was able to recognize pedestrians and road surfaces with more than 90% accuracy.
He anticipates that the public use of the scooters will begin in Northampton in the second phase in March and April. Despite the fact that the trial is focused on a single town, Fleury claims that the technology could be easily applied to any city; The only thing that would be required of the algorithms is fresh images showing how the area’s cycle lanes and sidewalks are marked.
Automobiles already use technology that is comparable. When reversing, it can tell a driver which lane they are in on the highway and warn them of nearby obstacles. However, incorporating this technology into e-scooters has been challenging.
“Ideally, micromobility is a light and inexpensive mode of transportation. According to Fleury, “We have to be aware of the cost of the technology that we produce.”
Similar systems are being used by other companies that make electric scooters. Spin, the micromobility division of Ford (F), recently announced that it would include computer vision and machine learning technology in its next fleet of electric scooters.
Lime introduced a new technology last year that uses patterns of speed and vibration to identify sidewalk riding. Users are notified via push notification if a trip is completed where more than half of the ride is on a sidewalk.
As the use of e-scooters continues to skyrocket, it is also being urged on cities to implement new safety measures. By 2024, there will be 4.6 million shared e-scooters in operation worldwide, up from 774,000 at the end of 2019. This is according to a market research company called Berg Insight.
The International Transport Forum’s 2020 report on micromobility, written by Alexandre Santacreu, says that while e-scooter companies’ technology is promising, city infrastructure and vehicle speed limits should be addressed first.
According to him, collisions with pedestrians frequently “occur in places where scooter riders do not feel safe on the streets and they go onto the pavements.”
According to Santacreu, cities must implement more cycle lanes and work to slow down cars in order to address this issue. Additionally, the ITF encourages micromobility operators to provide accident data to city authorities.
That is exactly what the Luna/Voi partnership intends to do. Ghazinouri asserts, “As a provider of micromobility, we have large-scale (data) insights to provide to cities on how they can improve their infrastructure.”
He hopes that the use of computer vision technology will contribute to the development of cities that are safer for pedestrians, bike riders, and scooter riders alike. He states, “We want to create cities built for living, not cars.”
