The Columbus Board of Public Works and Safety approved an agreement for use of a software platform that compiles analytics using GPS data.
The city is paying location analytics company Placer.ai $28,000 for use of their Placer Venue Analytics Platform, which City Engineer Andrew Beckort said can be used for a variety of purposes.
The engineering department, for their part, would be interested in traffic count data that it would be able to provide.
“This is a software that will allow us to have traffic counts for every street in town, and then draw areas and figure out attendance of events,” Beckort said. “And it gives you detail of where people are traveling from and where they went after the event.”
According to the city’s order form, some of the “actionable insights” Placer.ai is able to provide are:
- Foot traffic counts and dwell time
- True Trade Areas displaying frequent-visitors-density by home and work locations
- Customers’ demographics, interests and time spent at relevant locations
- Where customers are coming from and going to, and the routes they take
The GPS data it derives can come from someone’s cell phone or their car, for example.
While city engineering is paying for the platform, it can be tried out by other departments as well. Parks and Recreation had also expressed interest in using it, per Beckort.
“If you wanted to, as an example, monitor the school traffic flow, like around Fifth where you have three schools— it’ll allow you to figure out the timing of best usage and things like that?,” board member John Pickett asked.
“I believe so,” Beckort said. “You can look at downtown and be like, OK, the average time someone comes downtown is 35 minutes, the max time they spend is eight hours”
Communications and Event Coordinator Jody Coffman said she knows of other Indiana cities that use it, including Greensburg, along with some private businesses “because it does help with marketing and placement.”
