October
what we learned about safer streets in October...
We had the honor of watching Jacy Good and Steve Johnson talk about their real-life experience about a crash that took her parents’ lives and left her with life-long injuries, at the recent Vision Zero Fleet Conference, organized by the DCAS team of the city of New York this past month.
Jacy is a real-life survivor of a terrible incident involving her parents’ car, an 18-wheeler milk truck, and a distracted driver in his car, not seeing the intersection red light, causing a crash that took her parents’ lives and causing her life-long damage to her body and brain. You can see a few picutres of Lacy and Steven (her husband and partner since university) in our Fleet Conference Summary below, meantime see a poignant video of how other drivers react when faced with Jacy in a taped interview: https://youtu.be/E9swS1Vl6OkFleet Vision Zero Conference, New York
New York is an interesting city. Besides never sleeping, it has multiple agencies supporting the Mayor’s vision of safer streets. Both the Department of Transport and the Department o Citywide Administrative Services Fleet division are deeply involved in these efforts yet from different angles. One deals with all transportation, including pedestrians, cycling, cars, and trucks while the other focuses on the role in the safety of the city’s own nearly 30,000-vehicle fleet.
The conference featured Lanez as a vendor in the main area, and then several speakers and panels from all walks of life inside the auditorium. So our takeaway? There is a ton of new effort in the USA aimed at reducing crashes (no longer called accidents) in this country. With 43000 fatalities in 2021 due to road collisions, it is no wonder that efforts are being expended at federal, state and municipal levels to reduce these numbers drastically. Our second takeaway: it’s sometimes hard to believe that a pure software platform can help reduce collisions by up to 55% simply by using the city’s own cameras. So many vendors out there want to sell their newest, latest, and gresatest hardware, when along comes along a startup (with a team that has nearly 10 years of AI coding together) makes such promises. Urban planners and software coders work together on a novel, affordable and data-based approach with not a single traffic engineer amongst them. How did they do it? Maybe one should have asked Steve Jobs how he came up with and dared to launch the iPod idea when his own engineering team said it wouldn’t work? We stopped counting how often we told our story and received the reaction ” Nah, no way”. Well, yes way, as we took time to explain the novelty of our approach, they always got it. Below are some of the pictures gathered at the conference:
UPCOMING CONFERENCES WHERE YOU CAN MEET THE LANEZ TEAM
SMART CITIES CONGRESS
BARCELONA, SPAIN NOV 15-17TH, 2022
The Lanez team will be joining smart city officials and experts dedicated to making cities smarter and better prepared for the future of their citizens. Cities that connect their existing physical infrastructure with the Lanez actionable data platform are able to detect patterns, identify intervention points, and following the Lanez suggested solutions, prevent up to 55% of collisions.
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, USA JAN 5-8TH, 2023
The Lanez team will be joining hundreds of thousands of attendees, in the Eureka Park innovation section of the CES show. As mobility takes a growing importance, partcularly smart mobility, this show is now also dedicated to making cities smarter and better prepared for the future of their citizens’ mobility choices. Connectivity is a prime focus of CES. Given how easy our software can connect to smarter Cities infrastructure, its a natural “next place” for us to feature our offering.
ABOUT LANEZ:
Lanez is a team of professionals who share a common purpose of easing “flow”. We bring our shared skills and experience in deep machine learning software and AI-based data analysis to improve the flow and lives of people inhabiting urban environments today. Established in Tel Aviv in 2020, Lanez has already successfully rolled out its smart-city platform, not only in urban, yet also in highway environments. We recently added North American locations. Please write to us at info@lanez.tech to see how we can start to help your city be future-ready today, or visit us at www.lanez.tech
September
Lanez joins NVIDIA Metropolis to predict and prevent crashes on city streets
Ramat Gan, Israel — September 6, 2022 — Lanez, a big data company focused on predicting and preventing traffic crashes through its AI machine learning platform, today announced it has joined NVIDIA Metropolis, a partner program focused on bringing to market a new generation of vision AI applications. NVIDIA Metropolis nurtures a rich ecosystem and offers powerful developer tools to supercharge vision AI applications that are designed to make the world’s most important spaces and operations safer and more efficient.
The experienced AI team at Lanez helps cities identify potentially dangerous areas and ways to improve roadway efficiency. It uses existing city cameras and deploys AI-powered video-analytics modules that turn video into a series of geo-located and timed events that are streamed to the machine-learning system. The module’s neural networks run on NVIDIA GPUs accelerated by the NVIDIA DeepStream software development kit. Video frame data is classified in real time, objects in the video are detected and tracked across consecutive frames, and various anomalies are then detected. Once a pattern is defined, intervention points are determined based on various contextual information to help cities identify where they need to make changes for streets and sidewalks to become safer. The video data processing is done using regular street cameras and deep learning algorithms, meaning that investments are low and implementation is quite easily achieved.
NVIDIA Metropolis makes it easier and more cost-effective for enterprises, governments, and integration partners to use world-class AI-enabled solutions to improve critical operational efficiency and safety problems. The NVIDIA Metropolis ecosystem contains a large and growing breadth of members who are investing in the most advanced AI techniques and most efficient deployment platforms and using an enterprise-class approach to their solutions. Members can gain early access to NVIDIA platform updates to further enhance and accelerate their AI application development efforts. Further, the program offers the opportunity for members to collaborate with industry-leading experts and other AI-driven organizations.
“Joining the esteemed group of NVIDIA Metropolis partners is a watershed milestone moment for our entire team,” said Sass Peress, the new CEO of the group. “Having recently opened a location in North America, we are expanding our business development and partnership efforts globally, to be able to bring this life-saving technology to as many ‘future-ready’ cities as possible. We are grateful to NVIDIA for the continued support of the first city to adapt our technology (Tel-Aviv) and we want to thank the municipality’s IT team for their hard work to get this project going.”
SEPTEMBER HAPPENINGZ
NACTO 2022 BOSTON SEPT. 8-10TH
The Lanez team will be joining hundreds of city officials concerned by the increasing rate of street mobility incidents. As one of the only “for profit” entities at the conference, Lanez is privileged to have been selected to participate in this annual get together of “vision zero” teams, dedicated to helping mobility be safer for all.
TOGETHER FOR SAFER ROADS NEW YORK SEPT. 21-22ND
The Lanez team will be joining the members, sponsors, and city officials in New York, as Mayor Eric Adams is presented with an award for his immense dedication (aka budget and effort) to helping New York city and its boroughs become safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicle drivers alike.
SMART CITIES CONNECT WASHINGTON, DC SEPT 27-29TH
The Lanez team will be joining city officials and experts dedicated to making cities smarter and better prepared for the future of their citizens. Cities that connect their existing physical infrastructure with the Lanez actionable data platform are able to detect patterns, identify intervention points, and following the Lanez suggested solutions, prevent up to 55% of collisions.
ABOUT LANEZ:
Lanez is a team of professionals who share a common purpose of easing “flow”. We bring our shared skills and experience in deep machine learning software and AI-based data analysis to improve the flow and lives of people inhabiting urban environments today. Established in Tel Aviv in 2020, Lanez has already successfully rolled out its smart-city platform, not only in urban, yet also in highway environments. We recently added North American locations. Please write to us at info@lanez.tech to see how we can start to help your city be future-ready today, or visit us at www.lanez.tech
August
Welcome to the August monthly edition of our newsletter, Lanez Learningz, featuring smart city and mobility news, articles, and more. Our aim is to align purposes with leaders interested in saving lives, time, and/or pollution for our future-ready cities. From urban planning thoughts to writings on the latest in Artificial Intelligence tools that can help cities achieve VISION ZERO crash incidents, we hope you’ll find this info valuable to your objectives.
How will autonomous vehicles affect safety on our streets and sidewalks?
Well, if Elon is to be believed, the next generation of Self-Driving Teslas will be safer than human-driven vehicles. Speaking at the annual meeting on August 4th, he stated that the biggest challenge at the moment is left-hand turns, although much progress is being made in the rapid improvement of their self-driving technology.
Public Institutions are committed to the electrification of urban land to promote the use of autonomous vehicles. This contributes to the provision of new driving services to the user and to the reduction of the number of incidents. The latter is evidenced by studies such as the one carried out by Denmon Pearlman, a mobility crash lawyer based in Florida, USA. The advance of self-driving electric cars on North American soil and the numerous tests to which they are exposed every day bring us the conclusions in the article:
https://www.
Are there gender differences in pedestrian rule compliance at signalized and un-signalized crossroads??
From our own observations, our team’s answer would be a solid “Maybe” :). It’s far too easy to express our own biases in answering this question, yet a recent study shows what may be the trend, accounting for cultural, urban, and geographic differences. This study attempts to explain why far more men are killed in such crashes than women:
https://www.academia.edu/
When we met Chris at the June 2022 Smart City Expo, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, we were immediately impressed with his eloquence and passion for safe driving. Chris, a New York, had personally felt the devastation of traffic-related crashes with two separate biker incidents with close ones tragically lost or seriously injured.
A Columbia University graduate, Chris is also an equity and diversity consultant, coach, and speaker. The purpose of his work is to re-humanize culture. We found his essence compelling in helping Lanez tell the story of how we can help cities of all sizes avoid the tragedies that are deadly crashes. As a result, we recently brought him on board to help us spread our message of safety, equity, and justice to the city of New York and its boroughs.
Why is he so passionate about the subject of safe mobility? Watch Chris’ intro video and find out more about his own personal experiences with vehicle crashes:
A Columbia University graduate, Chris is also an equity and diversity consultant, coach, and speaker. The purpose of his work is to re-humanize culture. We found his essence compelling in helping Lanez tell the story of how we can help cities of all sizes avoid the tragedies that are deadly crashes. As a result, we recently brought him on board to help us spread our message of safety, equity, and justice to the city of New York and its boroughs.
Why is he so passionate about the subject of safe mobility? Watch Chris’ intro video and find out more about his own personal experiences with vehicle crashes:
ABOUT LANEZ:
Lanez is a team of professionals who share a common purpose of easing “flow”. We bring our shared skills and experience in deep machine learning software and AI-based data analysis to improve the flow and lives of people inhabiting urban environments today. Established in Tel Aviv in 2020, Lanez has already successfully rolled out its smart-city platform, not only in urban, yet also in highway environments. We recently added North American locations. Please write to us at info@lanez.tech to see how we can start to help your city be future-ready today, or visit us at www.lanez.tech
July
July newsletter
(Español abajo)
Welcome to our monthly newsletter, Lanez Learningz, featuring exclusive smart city and mobility blogs, articles, and more. Our aim is to match purposes with leaders interested in saving lives, time, and carbon for our future-ready cities. From urban planners to writings on the latest in predictive/preventive/prescriptive analytics, smart mobility, and even some occasional information on how this all ties into smart energy and the reduction of carbon emissions in our urban environments, you’ll find tidbits that align with many different purposes.
And for those of you who celebrated, a belated Happy 4th of July-Independence Day!
Main challenges of Micro-mobility in Big Cities, and How to Address Them
Nowadays, we cannot conceive of the term “mobility” without an accompanying “sustainable” adjective. Sustainability has become the main axis of future mobility in cities, thanks to the objective of decarbonization, together with the ecological values of our younger generations. Data show that cities occupy 4% of the planet and yet 80% of people live in cities, causing traffic congestion and danger at all levels. Faced with this challenge, cities must act with multimodal mobility solutions that turn big cities into smarter ones.
According to McKinsey & Company, the Sustainable Mobility sector will be valued at $300 billion and $500 billion by 2030, according to the European, Chinese, and US markets. As with many other societal and generation shifts, the coronavirus crisis and the risk of contracting it in public transport, together with the high price of fuel or the most recent impacts of climate change, are all “drivers” of this trend.
And yet, what are the main mobility challenges for big cities, in the context of this growth industry?
Safety. Despite the fact that micro-mobility actually increases safety iin urban environments, crashes have occurred due to improper use of electric mobility devices, as well as vandalism, such as the theft of those same devices. The absence of an airbag protection system causes some citizens to refuse to use micro-mobility systems. However, 70% of cities consider that reducing the number of car trips and increasing micro-mobility is good for safety, according to Voi Technology’s Safety Report. This is the first safety report by a Sustainable Mobility company with data from the cities in which it operates.
Cost of electric cars today. The number of electric car registrations is increasing every year, although they are still far from the market share of gasoline and diesel vehicles. The war in Ukraine with the increase in fuel and gas prices makes the purchase of these vehicles more difficult. Despite this, according to a study by the Línea Directa Foundation in Spain, the general population has a high intention to purchase electric vehicles, although they identify the high cost as the main barrier to entry. Another critical point is the insurance of autonomous vehicles. The insurance market offers insurance that you pay only when you make a trip with a micro-mobility device. In this way, the driver is covered for any accident he may cause.
Lack of a common legislative framework. One of the major problems of Sustainable Mobility today is the absence of a common legislative framework. It is unacceptable to have legislation at the local or regional level, but not at the national level. The latter is causing difficulties instead of opportunities. Countries must develop unique mobility laws that are aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, there is a lack of information on the subsidies offered by public administrations to citizens for the purchase of electric cars, which can exceed €9,000 in some European countries, as in Spain with the Moves III Plan.
Electrification of roads. The implementation of electric charging points for autonomous vehicles must be progressive. There must be a democratization of personal mobility devices based on technological neutrality. We cannot ask for accelerated electrification of urban land when there are not enough charging points, or in countries where electric energy is produced through coal mining. In this case, a common legislative framework would make it possible to eliminate bureaucratic procedures for electric charging points, which in many cases have processes that can take up to 30 months.
Lack of Existence of a single application aggregator. Sustainable Autonomous Mobility companies agree that it does not make sense to need 10 different applications for the same services. Leading global technologies such as Meep or Iomob are working on applications that unify all micro-mobility services worldwide. In this way, a citizen living in Paris does not have to download an application to use an autonomous mobility device when visiting London. The existence of a single aggregator would not only boost the use of autonomous vehicles but also facilitate the integration of digital advertising and other revenue streams to their technology platforms.
Sustainable Autonomous Mobility is one of the sectors with the greatest global expectations for growth in the coming years. The future of the planet is in the hands of a society that is increasingly aware of the fight against climate change. These policies were jointly expressed at the Madrid 2022 Global Mobility Call, where the public and private sectors joined forces in a transformation of urban land with a resilient capacity to the problems we are currently facing. This sector will generate millions of jobs globally over the coming decades, making micro-mobility a golden opportunity for young people seeking development opportunities.
Micro-mobility is not the future, it is the present. A present linked to sustainability, to the ecology in the laws against climate change, to the reduction of air pollution and road congestion. For short trips, shared micro-mobility systems are cheaper than public transport, and Public Administrations know it and that is why they will invest more money in the adoption of these electric vehicles. Don’t wait any longer. The change is in your hands. What will you do today?
User-Generated Urbanism – What if we could design our streets, parks, and other public spaces based on the actual needs and uses of the public? What if we could experiment and try out different uses so that we can optimize space and create healthy happy environments for people to thrive in? What would data-infused dynamic planning look like? What does it even mean? Take a look at this….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK7agOPye6M
About LanezLanez is a team of professionals who want to share a common purpose of easing “flow”, whether for four-wheel-vehicle or micro-mobility drivers, and pedestrians. We work together by bringing our shared skills and experience in deep learning and AI-based data analysis to improve the flow and lives of people inhabiting urban environments today. Established in Tel Aviv in 2020, Lanez has already successfully rolled out its smart-city platform, not only in urban, yet also in highway environments. We recently even added North American locations. Please write us at [email protected] to see how we can start to help your city be future-ready today. lanez.tech
Espanol
Bienvenido a Lanez Learningz, nuestro boletín mensual dedicado a una movilidad más limpia, segura y fluida.
Y para aquellos de ustedes que celebraron, ¡un feliz 4 de julio con retraso, Día de la Independencia!
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June
Lanez appoints Sass Peress as CEO
Appointment of new CEO signifies accelerated growth phase
Lanez, an Israeli-based company formed to provide smart cities with predictive mobility analytics, using machine learning AI tools, is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Sass Peress as CEO of the global group.
“We are excited to take Lanez to the next stage of expansion and feel confident that Sass is the absolute perfect fit. Cities across North America and the rest of the world are struggling to find cost-efficient and effective ways to prevent crashes and save lives. With Lanez’s solutions, cities can improve existing infrastructure and plan new superior infrastructure for micro-mobility and other mobility solutions of the future, said Shay Eliahu, Co-Founder and Past CEO of Lanez.
“With the advent of new transportation models, from micro-mobility to autonomous electric vehicles, cities are becoming even more congested, having to deal with greater complexity of traffic and pedestrian movement. Just as energy must flow without interruption, in a safe manner, so too can I apply those learnings to the safe and efficient flow of people and goods.” “I am proud to have accepted this position, and with Shay’s guidance hope to take Lanez to the next level of smart-city applications”, said Sass Peress.
After successful pilots both with integrators and smart cities, reducing their incidents, Lanez is ready to help cities gain a better understanding of the effects of every physical design change. Mr. Peress will be operating out of North American locations with a view to engaging with #VisionZero cities, intending on improving the safe and efficient movement of their citizens and goods across their city streets. He can be reached at his new email of [email protected]
About Lanez
Lanez is a team of professionals, who work together by bringing our shared skills and experience in deep learning and AI-based data analysis to improve places and the lives of people inhabiting them today and in the future. Established in Tel Aviv in 2020, Lanez has already successfully rolled out its smart-city platform not only in urban but also in highway environments. www.lanez.tech