An eighteen-year-old boy from Bengaluru develops India’s first artificial intelligence (AI)-powered sensor-based bicycle counter.
According to Nihar Thakkar, the creator of this AI system, the technology is an electronic device that counts cycles at a specific location for a set period and is installed to encourage cycling.
In collaboration with the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) and Doddanekundi residents, the newly developed cycle counter has been installed near the Outer Ring Road cycle lane in Doddanekundi, Bengaluru.
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“This is the first live bicycle counter in the country and will help collect usage data of bicycles using the dedicated lane, which will make the impact of the cycle lane more visible and encourage cycling. The live bicycle counter is installed under the SuMA (Sustainable Mobility Accord) project being funded by DULT as a pilot project,” said Thakkar to The IndianExpress.
He further added that the counter can distinguish between bicycles and all other vehicles and will only count cyclists in both directions on the cycle lane and the service road. Moreover, the bicycle counter is powered by an AI-sensor camera and a machine learning algorithm that can use the gathered data to promote cycling and build more dedicated bike lanes.
Apart from creating this AI-powered bicycle counter, Nihar Thakkar also founded Urban Flow. Nihar mentioned Urban Flow develops AI-powered tools for cycle lane enforcement, traffic analysis, and live bicycle counters.
“At Urban Flow, we are building AI-based tools that will help the enforcement of traffic rules. Most of the dedicated cycle lanes are being misused by two wheelers,” said Thakkar. He also mentioned that the technology uses an artificial intelligence-enabled camera that processes video footage in real-time to collect and send evidence of traffic violations to authorities.
