With the goal of improving road safety, Umbrellium, a London-based company made up of a team of architects, designers, tactical urbanists, and creative technologists who specialize in designing and developing technologies, has unveiled a new interactive pedestrian crossing called Starling Crossing that responds dynamically in real-time with the environment.
The entire road surface of Starling Crossing is monitored by cameras and is embedded with computer-controlled LEDs that can be seen from all angles, during both day and night.
By using a neural network framework, the cameras track objects that are moving across the road surface and is able to distinguish between pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles. Calculating their precise locations, trajectories and velocities of the vehicles, Starling Crossing modifies the pattern, layout, configuration, size and orientation of the crossing in order to prioritize pedestrian safety.
The Starling Crossing is also able to use the principles of stigmergy to monitor and adapt to pedestrian desire lines that are used over along-term. For example, if pedestrians are frequently walking across the road in one particular way, the crossing is able to reconfigure the desired path with corresponding safety buffer zones.
To learn more about Starling Crossing, click the link below.
