After a pilot in Ann Arbor, Ford Motor Company is expanding its City Insights Platform to six new cities:
"After a successful pilot in Ann Arbor, MI, Ford is expanding a program that uses advanced software tools and data visualization to help cities understand urban problems to six new partners," reports Jason Plautz for Smart Cities Dive.
In a post on Medium, Ford describes the program, known as the City Insights Platform, as a tool for leveraging parking, transit, traffic, safety, and Census data to allow planners to visualize a city's entire mobility "ecosystem." The platform also allows exploration and testing of potential solutions.
"With Ann Arbor, Ford used safety, parking and transit data to create an interactive model of the city, complete with buildings, to test potential mobility solutions before implementing them. Data from connected vehicles helped provide a real-time look at congestion and traffic flow," according to Plautz.
According to Ford, the pilot in Ann Arbor was supported by the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority, the Downtown Development Authority, Ann Arbor SPARK, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
Austin, Indianapolis, Detroit, Miami, Pittsburgh, and Grand Rapids are the six cities gaining access to the platform.
FULL STORY: Ford to expand data visualization platform to 6 new cities

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