The same week that the New York Police Department released a boat load of data about traffic collisions comes news that exercise app Strava will sell its data on the how, where, and when bikers and runners use streets.
"On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based company launched Strava Metro, which provides data from 90 million bike rides and 24 million runs as of this week — the byproduct of virtual competitions around the world — to help urban planners understand how and where cyclists use public streets," reports Reed Albergotti.
"The first customer, Oregon’s Department of Transportation, is paying $20,000 to use the data for a year. Strava also signed up London; Glasgow; Orlando, Fla.; and Alpine Shire in Victoria, Australia."
Albergotti cites an anecdote shared by Margi Bradway, a policy analyst for the Oregon DOT, who discovered that her friends would use the app even more if they knew planners were using it to make data-driven decisions. In fact, "[in] the past six months, Oregon has used the Strava data to determine where cyclists have trouble figuring out traffic patterns, and to find the best way to install rumble strips on a road outside Portland that is popular with cyclists."
Read the full story: Strava, Popular With Cyclists and Runners, Wants to Sell Its Data to Urban Planners
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