For the past few years, Clark Haynes has been strapping sensors onto bicycles to keep riders safe.
Using some of the same technology that powers driverless cars, the AI-enabled sensors, called Copilot, can detect a potential collision with a vehicle and thwart it by flashing a light or blasting a sound.
An alumnus of autonomous vehicle companies Aurora and Uber ATG, Mr. Haynes originally thought of the sensors as the end product. But through a partnership with the city of Pittsburgh, he realized the underlying data they gather might be more valuable.
“We’ve actually now generated more revenue using that than our consumer side,” said Mr. Haynes, founder of Velo AI.
The approach also caught the attention of the federal government. Velo announced Wednesday that it received $200,000 from the Department of Transportation through a new program called Complete Streets AI.
The Lawrenceville-based startup is one of 12 companies to receive the awards and the only one based in Pennsylvania.
“The funding we’re announcing today supports our country’s small businesses and startups so they can harness cutting-edge advancements, deploy them in local communities, and make our streets safer,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement announcing the awards.
Velo’s model is relatively simple.
“A city comes to us, we ship them a box of our devices, they deploy them throughout the city with volunteers,” Mr. Haynes explained.
Such participants then ride certain routes of interest to the city, or just complete their daily commute. When they get home, they connect the sensors to Wi-Fi and upload their data.
“Then we crunch the numbers and give them a report,” Mr. Haynes said.
Such reports allow cities to make informed decisions about where to fix potholes, build bike lanes and make other improvements. Velo did its first report for Roanoke, Va., about a year ago. It has since partnered with Pittsburgh, through a PGH Lab grant and Ann Arbor, Mich., through a downtown development initiative.
Mr. Haynes said the Ann Arbor example was “really exciting” because officials heard about Velo on their own and reached out, wanting to learn more about their bicycling culture.
“When you’re talking about community outreach, it’s really critical to share these numbers and to be able to inform the public, you know, why are we making these decisions?” Mr. Haynes said.
He is hoping the data allows urban planning to be a bit more proactive.
“All too often bike infrastructure is very reactionary to death for serious injuries,” Mr. Haynes said. Many of Pittsburgh’s bike lanes, including a Forbes Avenue artery, were the direct result of a fatality. But there are 100 near misses for every major crash, Mr. Haynes said.
“So there’s 100 times more data that we could be using… that’s really what we’re going after.”
Velo has benefitted from federal funding before. It was part of the inaugural Robotics Factory cohort last year, a co-working space and mentorship program created through the region’s $63 million Build Back Better grant for robotics.
For the new funding, Velo will partner with the Mobility Analytics Center at Carnegie Mellon University, where Mr. Haynes earned his Ph.D. It also plans to partner with the local public bike share program POGOH.
A significant coalition is supporting the project, including the city’s department of mobility and infrastructure, BikePGH, The Allegheny Conference, The Heinz Endowments, Innovation Works, The League of American Bicyclists, Mobilify, and The Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission.
As the data portion progresses, early adopters are still using Copilot independently, Mr. Haynes said. The company sold out of its first launch and now has about 100 units deployed across the country.
“And we’ve been completely redesigning the product and getting a version two that we’re going to launch in 2025,” he said. “It’s half the size and half the weight… smaller than a deck of cards, and we packed in a ton of intelligence.”
Compared to the incredibly costly development of autonomous vehicles, Mr. Haynes said he is grateful to have tackled a more niche challenge.
Velo is a fraction of the size of Aurora, which raised another $483 million this month to support driverless trucking operations, but is “tackling a problem that has just as many road deaths as crashes involving tractor trailers,” Mr. Haynes said. “Actually, I think there are more.”
View the full article at post-gazette.com.