PerryĪll that will be just the beginning, says Austin Ashe, Current’s general manager for intelligent cities, because much of the data gathered by the streetlight Internet of Things (IoT) network will be publicly available, and the city will allow software developers to build apps that use the data. Some 3,200 of these high-tech lamps will soon light up the city of San Diego. Smart Stalks: Sensor-packed streetlights track activity and environmental conditions in their vicinity. And they’ll be able to monitor intersections and note when traffic backs up-information that might one day be used to adjust traffic signals. The sensing lights could detect other sounds, too, and automatically alert police to dangerous situations, by recognizing the sound of broken glass or a car crash, for instance. It’s a whole new way to improve pedestrian safety,” said David Graham, San Diego’s deputy chief operating officer.Īlso, he says, the streetlights could easily be hooked into the city’s existing ShotSpotter network, which automatically locates the source of gunfire, increasing ShotSpotter coverage from just 10 square kilometers (about 4 square miles) to a much broader area. Later in the year, city officials expect, the sensor data will be used in other ways, some by the city and some by software developers creating new services for residents and visitors.įor starters, the city “expects to learn what intersections are the most dangerous and need to be redesigned, based on information on near misses, not just the accident data. The network’s first job will be pointing out vacant parking spots to drivers and, potentially, alerting traffic enforcement officers to illegally parked cars. By sometime in May, about 3,200 of the sensing lights, designed and operated by Current, a subsidiary of General Electric, will each monitor an oval area of roughly 36 by 54 meters (120 to 180 feet). And if they had, they likely wouldn’t have noticed that some of these lights were a little thicker around the middle than others, or that some lanterns topping old-style lampposts had a clear glass panel here and there.īut unbeknownst to the people below, those streetlights were looking-and listening-all around them, while also monitoring temperature, humidity, and other characteristics of the air.Īnd this year, what was a test network of just 50 smart, sensor-laden streetlights will explode to cover most of the populated parts of San Diego.

None of the people walking around San Diego’s East Village neighborhood one recent afternoon were looking up at the streetlights (except me).

San diego traffic now