New sensors will analyze how pedestrians and traffic interact in downtown Kelowna.

(JULIE WHITTET / iNFOnews.ca)

New 5G technology will be installed in downtown Kelowna next week for what’s billed as a Canadian blueprint for collecting data on how people move about on streets and sidewalks.

Sensors, called LiDAR, will be connected to the internet after being installed at two intersections along Bernard Avenue: one at Water Street and another at Pandosy Street. Three more will be installed at other Kelowna intersections later this year.

“Unlike traffic cameras, LiDAR captures consistent data over the course of a 24-hour period, regardless of changes in lighting or weather, and the resolution of the data is insufficient to capture or reveal identifying details about people or permit facial recognition,” states a news release issued today, May 28, by the City of Kelowna.

The project is meant to catalogue and analyze things like near misses between cyclists, vehicles and pedestrians, how people use transit, what parts of a block are more suitable for pick up and drop offs for things like ride sharing and how emergency responders can be better informed.

“Until now, detailed information about the way cyclists, pedestrians and vehicles move and behave in urban environments has been surprisingly difficult to collect and, importantly, share in real time,” Professor David Michelson, lead researcher on the project and director of the AURORA connected vehicle test bed at UBC Vancouver, said in the release.

The project is being done jointly with the City, UBC and Rogers Communications and is said to be Canada’s “first real-world 5G smart city solution."

The idea for the project came from a March 27 virtual hack-athon with close to 50 UBC students looking at ways to use the technology.

 — This story was corrected at 1:11 p.m. Thursday, May 28, 2020 to change the headline which incorrectly referred to cameras instead of sensors.

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