Vectura generates traffic data that municipalities, research institutions, and private companies can use to derive new insights about Austin’s transportation system. Because Vectura is built on open-source software and low-cost hardware, it provides transportation agencies across the globe an affordable alternative to mainstream traffic data collection products.
We will be among the first to leverage the power of IoT in order to bridge the gap between public sector data infrastructure and the communities they serve. This project will allow people access to an unprecedented level of information about their city's infrastructure, leading the vanguard of free and open-source Smart City deployments.
Itamar Gal graduate from University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) with a Ph.D. in math, worked as a research associate at the UT Center for Transportation Research (UT-CTR) and is now an engineering scientist at the UT Applied Research Laboratories (UT-ARL). He has experience as a software developer and systems engineer and has a passionate for data transparency and open-source software.
Richard Lane has been a software developer in the printing and media industries since 1996 and has worked with many programming languages over the years, including Java, C++ and Php. In his spare time he hacks on SSB's (single board computers) using them to automate his home, aggregate monitoring data and mange home media.
Seth Taplin is an Advisory Software Engineer at IBM with interests in Android development and open-source software.
Itamar, Richard and Seth were all core team members who worked together on the ATX Traffic Data Collection Network Project championed by the Austin Transportation Department at ATX Hack for Change this year. This submission represents a continuation of that effort.
Our application makes high-resolution traffic data available to the public, and will eliminate a cost barrier to procuring hyper-local traffic data that can be used by residents to understand transportation challenges in their communities.
Hardware (e.g. Raspberry Pis or other SBCs), internet connectivity (i.e. wireless internet access), cloud hosting.
