Placemeter Provides New Ways to Measure Traffic

In the ongoing quest to better measure the use of streets by all modes—a new tool could be a game changer for transportation engineers, planners, and advocates alike.

1 minute read

July 11, 2015, 7:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Tanya Snyder reports: "A new digital tool called Placemeter aims to measure streets at a much more fine-grained level, analyzing a variety of different aspects of movement in an urban environment."

"Placemeter’s software extracts information from video of streets — it can measure the movement of vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians and then tell you about things like the incidence of speeding or the foot traffic for a specific storefront. Cities are finding lots of interesting ways to use it — but it’s not just for bureaucrats. The people behind Placemeter think it will be very useful for advocates too."

The article includes an interview with Alexandre Winter and Florent Peyre, founders of Placemeter, who explain the method of the new tool and its many possible applications. For additional introduction to Placemeter, there's the video found below.

Placemeter Algorithms Output from Placemeter on Vimeo.

Monday, June 29, 2015 in Streetsblog USA

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

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