Technology in Planning - Motion Sensors That Count Cars AND People

Planning seems to me a perennial late arrival to new technologies. While other fields of human endeavour embrace each advance in web technology, interactive data, cloud computing, social media and so forth, planners seem to just trod along looking at plans and trusting their instincts.

Meanwhile, there are companies doing some cool stuff. Check these guys out for instance: 

Motionloft, a San Francisco-based startup backed by Mark Cuban, wants to track your every move, whether you’re on foot or in a car. Don’t panic: The startup’s sensors, which are in the process of being installed around San Francisco, track anonymous data--and it will all be used for good, if Motionloft can help it.

I recently took a trip to Motionloft headquarters, where I looked up close at the company’s product. The five-inch-by-five-inch nondescript sensors need only to be attached to a window with a view of the street to unobtrusively start counting all the people and cars outside. All of the information is funneled into the cloud, where it ends up in Motionloft’s online dashboard. The startup already has sensors placed throughout San Francisco (and is in the process of installing more), so it has a relatively complete picture of traffic in the city.

There is an infinite number of uses for Motionloft’s data, but the startup is beginning with real estate developers and businesses. A coffee shop could use this kind of information to choose a location that has lots of mid-day traffic. A restaurant could use it to decide whether to focus on breakfast, lunch, or dinner."There are no other sensors that can do anything like this," says Motionloft CEO Jon Mills. "The sensors use only 11 watts of power and they send data in real time."

Take note!

Read more at FastCoExist.