Detroit’s NextEnergy has named Grosse Pointe Park as the pilot location for Canada’s SmartCone Technologies’ technology safety solution, which will be installed at two intersections adjacent to two schools and a popular commercial and entertainment district.
SmartCone develops modular Internet of Things ecosystem technology and was the Demonstration Grant Award winner of NextEnergy’s NextChallenge SmartCities.
“NextChallenge SmartCities’ main goals are to build relationships between industry and city leaders, deploy promising solutions in real-world settings, and identify and create additional value from the deployment learnings,” says Jim Saber, president and CEO of NextEnergy. “Through the management of the competition and by leveraging our experience in developing and managing public-private partnerships, our goals for NextChallenge SmartCities are being met with SmartCone and the city of Grosse Pointe Park.”
NextEnergy and SmartCone worked with Chief Stephen Poloni, director of public safety for Grosse Pointe Park, and Nick Sizeland, city manager, to identify the intersections, located at St. Paul and Somerset and at the north end of Nottingham at Kercheval. The Grosse Pointe Public School System does not provide bus transportation, so students who walk, bike, or are driven to school make the area busy during school drop off and pick up times.
“As part of this pilot, the city has traffic data insights including the speed of vehicles and the amount of people/activations utilizing these two crosswalks while simultaneously using artificial intelligence to detect pedestrians entering a zone and automatically send a signal to set off rapid flashing beacons, bringing immediate attention and visibility to oncoming motorists that the crosswalk is in use,” says Tenille Houston, CEO of AutoGuardian by SmartCone.
NextEnergy was founded in 2002 and is a nonprofit organization that works with innovators to accelerate smarter, cleaner, and more accessible solutions for communities and cities. It has worked with more than 400 companies, universities, federal agencies, and philanthropic organizations to drive more than $1.5 billion in advanced energy and mobility technology investments. It demonstrates and pilots technologies in real-world environments to gather data and user experiences, helping to scale and deploy solutions by accelerating commercialization.
“Grosse Pointe Park residents and public safety have been working together to identify ways to improve the safety of our kids and families going to school,” says Sizeland. “When NextEnergy approached us as a possible pilot location, and we learned more about the potential of the AutoGuardian solution, we felt that this was not only a step toward fulfilling that promise but a chance to demonstrate the smart city technologies of the future right here.”
SmartCone is a data sensory company that commercializes Internet of Things technologies to power sensors with cognitive edge computing, sensor fusion, and artificial intelligence analytics. Its technology has been used to secure dangerous worksites, smart city infrastructure, logistics, asset tracking, monitoring traffic incidents, crowd control, and site security surveillance. AutoGuardian is a subsidiary of SmartCone and specializes in deploying and operating intelligent infrastructure for bike lanes, crosswalks, and autonomous shuttle routes.
