Kitchener, Ontario Counts on CIMCON to Reimagine Transportation in the Urban Core

BURLINGTON, Mass., Oct. 7, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CIMCON, the leading global provider of smart city technologies, is assisting the City of Kitchener to develop data-driven transportation plans as the population and density of the downtown area increases. The city has selected CIMCON's NearSky smart city platform and its traffic analytics solution to help transportation planners measure and understand bicycle usage in the city. This allows planners to better understand the place of bicycles in the city's overall transportation mix as the city works to improve the safety of city streets for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

With the population of downtown Kitchener expected to increase dramatically over the next three years, city planners need to diversify the modes of transportation to prevent future gridlock. CIMCON's NearSky platform has been installed on two streets (Belmont Avenue and Queens Boulevard) and is being used to count bicycles on streets, as well as on sidewalks. During one recent week, the system detected between 120 and 180 cyclists per day, of which 60 to 70 percent were using the sidewalks (these fluctuations are based on weather and road conditions.)

"The pilot of separated bike lanes represents a new form of cycling infrastructure for Kitchener," said Aaron McCrimmon-Jones, Manager of Transportation Planning at the City of Kitchener. "To properly assess the success of this pilot, we needed accurate data on bicycle traffic and CIMCON's NearSky delivered. This data gives our decision-makers the insight needed to realize our goal of building people-friendly transportation options in our community."

Kitchener's Transportation team found NearSky provided a better approach than traditional automatic on-road data solutions. Those systems can't be used during the winter, are unable to monitor traffic on both roadways and sidewalks, rely on batteries that need to be replaced on a regular basis and require complicated back-end work to analyze the results.

"We were impressed by how quickly CIMCON was able to install its system, make adjustments and deliver the data we needed," said Courtney Zinn, Innovation Lab Director at the City of Kitchener. "That data played a critical role in helping to build citizen confidence in the Transportation team's analysis and recommendations."

"CIMCON's focus is on providing smart city solutions that work in real-world situations," said Anil Agrawal, CEO of CIMCON. "The NearSky platform is simple to deploy, flexible in the use cases it can support, and perfectly suited for the type of application underway in Kitchener."

The City of Kitchener is working with CDW to deploy the NearSky smart city platform and to help drive data for the city's cycling master plan for the next 20 years. The plan's aim is to meet the needs of a cycling community whose growth is being fueled by Kitchener's university and tech sectors, as well as the desire to increase population density in the city's center. The plan includes dedicated bike lanes with physical barriers to separate cars and bicycles, and the reconfiguration of a number of roadways.

Cities and utilities can initiate a customized pilot of the NearSky smart city platform by visiting https://www.cimconlighting.com/streetvantage-smart-city-pilot-program.

About CIMCON Lighting, Inc.

With a heritage of over 25 years of innovation and experience in industrial automation and outdoor wireless applications, CIMCON provides the most proven and most complete smart city solutions to global cities and utilities. The company is the world's leading provider of scalable, intelligent wireless outdoor lighting management solutions for traditional, LED and solar-based street lights, and the company's smart city platform provides an easy way to deploy, manage and maintain smart city devices and applications. Focused on offering solutions that provide the lowest "Lifecycle Cost of Ownership," CIMCON provides hardware and software technologies that allow cities and utilities to monitor, maintain and in many cases, monetize their assets and other devices on or near the light pole. CIMCON's "Just in Time Lighting™," reduces energy, maintenance and repair costs while improving the quality of lighting services and enabling the path to a smart city. For more information, please visit www.cimconlighting.com.

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Media Contact:

John Joseph, VP of Marketing, Tel: +1 978-320-4002 x433, Email: [email protected]

SOURCE CIMCON Lighting