Fact Sheet: NYC DOT Street Activity Sensor Pilot

Project Overview

The New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) partnered with Viva to deploy a network of street activity sensors to collect continuous, multimodal data on how streets are used. The pilot replaced periodic manual traffic counts with always-on measurement, enabling NYC DOT to evaluate street designs, prioritise Vision Zero safety projects, and better understand how people move through and use public space.

Project Snapshot

Client: New York City Department of Transportation
Technology: Street activity sensors using on-device computer vision
Deployment: 12 sensors across Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens
Primary Purpose: Street redesign evaluation and proactive road safety analysis
Funding: New York State ESDC, Federal RAISE, and Safe Streets for All (SS4A) grants
Data Ownership: NYC DOT; anonymised datasets published via NYC Open Data

Objectives and Use Cases

NYC DOT deployed the sensors to move from short-term, manual surveys toward continuous network intelligence. The data is used to:

Assess the safety and operational performance of street designs and active travel interventions
Prioritise locations for safety improvements based on observed exposure and interaction risk, rather than relying solely on historical crash data
Understand curb and street activity beyond moving traffic, including access to bus stops, loading behaviour, and visits to local destinations

Data Capabilities

The sensors identify and classify road users in real time and generate datasets not available from legacy technologies such as inductive loops or pneumatic tubes, including:

Multimodal classification of up to nine travel modes, including pedestrians, cyclists, e-scooters, private vehicles, trucks, and buses
Behavioural data such as speeds and paths of travel (desire lines)
Detection of near-miss interactions between road users to highlight potential conflict hotspots
Automated turning movement counts at signalised intersections

Outcomes and Impact

The pilot provides NYC DOT with a robust, continuous evidence base for planning and operational decisions:

Over a six-month period, the sensors recorded more than 25 million road user movements, including approximately 15 million vehicle movements, 7 million pedestrian movements, and 3 million cyclist movements
The data has been used to review and adjust traffic signal phasing and timing to reduce conflicts between cyclists and motor vehicles
Continuous measurement enables analysis of seasonal variation in walking and cycling, supporting more reliable forecasting of modal trends

Privacy and Governance

The deployment operates under strict Privacy by Design protocols authorised by NYC DOT and the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation:

Video is processed locally on the sensor and deleted as part of normal operation
Only anonymous statistical outputs (counts, speeds, paths, and interactions) are stored or transmitted
The system is used exclusively for planning and analysis and is not connected to traffic enforcement