Across cities worldwide, traffic engineers and urban planners share a common goal: designing safer, more efficient streets for everyone. Yet as pedestrian and cyclist fatalities continue to rise, one challenge persists: accessing accurate multimodal data that reflects how people move through communities.
Pedestrians and cyclists account for 26% of global traffic deaths, showing the urgent need for data-driven safety improvements. That’s where Miovision Scout Plus comes in. With AI-powered onboard processing, Scout Plus delivers rapid, reliable insights into pedestrian and cyclist activity, helping to make informed decisions that protect road users and create smarter, more connected streets.
Challenges in Pedestrian and Bike Traffic Studies
Traditional pedestrian and bike traffic studies rely on manual or mechanical tools, such as road tubes, radar, or human observers stationed at busy intersections. While these methods have supported traffic engineering solutions for decades, they have significant limitations:
- Road tubes are primarily designed for vehicles, not bikes, and many cyclists avoid them entirely, leading to skewed traffic data.
- A Transportation Research Board study found that pneumatic‑tube systems generally undercount cyclists, in some cases by 210% to 273%, particularly when multiple bikes pass together or traffic is mixed with motor vehicles. Inaccuracies occur as sensors are calibrated for heavier vehicles, not due to rider intent.
- Manual video processing can provide accurate counts, but high costs and long turnaround times delay critical urban planning and infrastructure decisions.
- Radar systems often struggle to differentiate between bicycles, pedestrians, and vehicles, especially in complex urban mobility networks with mixed traffic flow.
The result is incomplete traffic data and delayed analysis, which can prevent cities from making timely improvements to streets, sidewalks, and crossings. Without accurate, reliable traffic data, even the most well-designed traffic engineering solutions fall short in protecting vulnerable road users.
Smarter Traffic Engineering Solutions with Miovision Scout Plus
Miovision Scout Plus now features AI-powered onboard processing for pedestrian and bike traffic studies, a game-changer for multimodal traffic data collection. Instead of sending footage for external processing or waiting days for manual review, Scout Plus processes traffic data directly on the device. The result is a faster, more accurate pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle movement analysis.
Expanding Capabilities: Two New Study Types
With onboard AI processing, Miovision Scout Plus now offers two powerful options for multimodal traffic data collection:
ATRs with Bikes
Capture vehicle and bicycle counts in a single study, helping traffic engineers and public agencies assess how cyclists, cars, and buses share the road. This comprehensive view allows planners to optimize traffic flow and improve safety for all road users.
Pathway Studies
Designed for non-motorized routes, this mode tracks pedestrian and bike traffic along sidewalks, trails, and crossings, looking into mobility patterns beyond traditional roadways. By analyzing these routes and traffic patterns, cities can better plan urban mobility networks that prioritize the safety of vulnerable road users and support micromobility transportation alternatives.
Benefits of AI-Powered Pedestrian and Bike Traffic Data Collection
Miovision Scout Plus simplifies traffic data collection, from setup to reporting. This innovation transforms pedestrian and bike traffic studies for traffic engineers, urban planners, and public agencies.
Faster Study Turnaround Times
With Scout Plus, traffic engineers can access multimodal data within minutes of study completion. By accelerating improvements such as new bike lanes, speed limit adjustments, and other interventions, cities can set a new standard for efficient, data-driven urban mobility.
Lower Costs, Greater Value
With processing data onboard, Miovision eliminates the high costs of manual video analysis. Instead, it offers an affordable subscription model and low hourly fees, which means reduced costs and time savings.
Simplified Workflow
Scout Plus video data collection enables multiple study types and classifications from a single device. Engineers no longer need to juggle various devices or software systems to achieve accurate results, streamlining operations and improving traffic data accuracy.
Aligned with the Safe Systems Approach
The Safe System Approach recognizes that humans make mistakes, but those mistakes shouldn’t cost lives. It’s built on designing transportation systems that are forgiving, proactive, and data-informed, ensuring that road users, vehicles, and infrastructure work together to reduce crash severity and prevent fatalities. Around the world, agencies embrace this framework by prioritizing evidence-based planning, continuous monitoring, and system-level interventions over reactive measures.
Miovision supports this shift by providing the data and analytics tools transportation professionals need to understand risk, identify conflict points, and measure the impact of safety improvements. By translating real-world traffic behaviors into actionable insights, Miovision helps cities implement the principles of the Safe System Approach.
How? By designing safer intersections, managing speeds, and building more resilient networks, where human error doesn’t result in tragedy.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How do pedestrian and cyclist patterns change at different times of day or week?
Traffic patterns vary depending on commuting hours, school schedules, and weekend activity. Collecting time-stamped multimodal data can help cities plan traffic signals, crossings, and bike lane usage to match real-world behavior.
What factors affect the accuracy of traffic studies for pedestrians and cyclists?
Accuracy can be influenced by weather, lighting, cyclists’ visibility, sidewalk or shoulder width, and the presence of other vehicles. Advanced AI tools can adjust for these variables for more reliable results.
How can cities measure the effectiveness of new infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians?
By comparing pre- and post-construction traffic data, cities can track changes in route usage, travel times, and crash incidents to determine if bike lanes, crosswalks, or traffic calming measures improve safety and mobility.
Takeaways
- Miovision Scout Plus delivers faster, more accurate pedestrian and bike traffic studies.
- Onboard AI processing eliminates manual data handling, reducing costs and turnaround times.
- Provides multimodal traffic data for vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians in a single study.
- Helps urban planners and traffic engineers make informed decisions to improve bicycle safety and pedestrian protection.
- Supports more innovative traffic engineering solutions, including optimized traffic signals, travel times, and route planning.
- Enables cities to design safer, more efficient streets and improve urban mobility for all road users.
- Turns raw traffic data into actionable insights for sidewalks, intersections, bike paths, and parking lots.
Building Smarter, Connected Communities
Miovision’s innovation goes beyond AI technology. It allows communities to make data-driven decisions that shape safer, more efficient transportation networks. By giving urban planners, traffic engineers, and public authorities faster access to accurate multimodal traffic data, Miovision helps design systems where drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians can coexist safely and efficiently.
With Scout Plus onboard AI processing, cities can quickly generate reliable pedestrian and bike traffic insights to improve bicycle safety, reduce crashes, and enhance travel times. The result is a smarter, more connected community built on actionable data and real-world impact.
Contact Miovision today to see how our intelligent traffic engineering solutions can help your organization transform multimodal data into safer, more efficient streets for every traveler. Let’s move together.