5 Tech Tools To Improve Urban Cycling

London designers imagine Google Glass-like visors and buses that project outlines of their blind spots on the road as enhancements to urban cycling safety

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By Heather Hansman

Smithsonian

What if, when you rolled up to a stop light on your bike, your helmet told you where to make your next turn, and gauged traffic to send you home the fastest, safest way.

That’s not out of the realm of possibility. A new project, Connected Cyclists, from Future Cities Catapult in London, is looking at ways that virtual reality, the internet of things and real time data can make streets and bikes paths safer and more useful for cyclists.

The team behind the project came up with five concepts, all rooted in machine-to-machine communication. The products address problems that city bikers face, including route finding and dodging buses. “If these displays talked to the city around them—if they knew where the cyclist was and what they were looking at—they could give much more subtle spatial and contextual information that builds on the surroundings of the cyclist,” says Claire Mookerjee, the project lead.

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