(COLUMBUS,OHIO) – DriveOhio, an initiative of the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), is partnering with Nexar to pilot the company’s monitoring technology to improve road safety around work zones. The pilot will begin this week and run through August along the state’s 33 Smart Mobility Corridor.
In the last 10 years, there have been almost 60,000 road incidents involving work zones in Ohio, with more than 14,000 of them resulting in either injuries or fatalities. Last year alone, there were a record-high 6,574 work zones crashes in Ohio; a 40 percent increase from the year before. It is imperative for the state to be testing new innovations that can improve road safety for the state’s construction workers and drivers alike.
Nexar is a software company that analyzes roadway data from its connected network of AI-powered consumer dash cameras. Nexar CityStream, the company’s insights platform for cities and transit authorities, analyzes real-time data from this network and shares the insights with public officials to arm them with the data they need to make informed transportation decisions.
Beginning June 15, DriveOhio will pilot Nexar CityStream’s technology to identify and monitor construction zones, as well as digitally map road signs and monitor them for changes.
Currently, ODOT deploys field technicians to monitor whether roadside safety regulations are being observed at work zone sites. But these employees can’t be everywhere at once. Nexar’s CityStream platform will allow ODOT to monitor work zones remotely and observe things like permit compliance, and which sites are regularly causing traffic build-ups, so public officials can use a data driven approach to deploy resources when and where they’re needed.
“DriveOhio is ODOT’s innovation startup. We partner with companies to utilize smart mobility technologies to make Ohio’s roads safer,” said Patrick Smith, interim director of DriveOhio. “DriveOhio helps the public sector test new technologies like Nexar to understand the advantages of fresh visual data and how it can best be incorporated to assist ODOT employees. Nexar CityStream has the potential to make our roads safer for workers and travelers alike.”
“We’re elated to work with DriveOhio, which is a leading example of how public officials can support the development of the technologies that will change our roads,” said Nexar co-founder and CEO Eran Shir. “Nexar CityStream is an example of how consumer technology can serve the greater public good. The drivers in our network using our smart dash cameras have the peace of mind knowing if something happens on the road, they’ll have a clear record of the incident. Meanwhile, their anonymized ride data is directly supporting our public officials as they work to make our roads safer.”
Nexar abides by the European Union’s strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy standards for all of its users, regardless of lesser local requirements. Nexar’s CityStream platform fully anonymizes and aggregates data so that individual riders, trips, and third parties can never be identified. The data DriveOhio will receive is narrow in scope and is specifically focused on insights about work zones and road inventory.