New York’s Citi Bikes Is Trialling Blaze Laserlight Tech
Citi Bike + Blaze from Citi Bike on Vimeo.
New York’s Citi Bikes program will be trialling Blaze’s Laserlight tech on 250 of its bikes this winter, with an eye towards a possible larger rollout of the tech.
The idea behind the tech trial is simultaneously to improve safety and to improve female ridership numbers (apparently since research has shown that women are more likely to utilize bikesharing services when there are more safety features in place).
This initial pilot of the technology (with regard to the Citi Bikes fleet) will reportedly comprise 250 bikes.
Tech Crunch provides more:
“Blaze’s bike lights work by projecting an easy to discern, green outline of a basic bicycle icon ahead of the bike itself, giving motorists, pedestrians and others sharing the roads an early heads up that there’s someone biking in their vicinity. This is a huge help for cyclists in general, since simply making car and truck operators aware of their presence can really help avoid accidents. …
“London’s use of Blaze has paved the way for this NYC expansion; Citi Bike cites stats on heightened rider visibility and rider confidence in their own safety resulting from the UK deployment as big reasons for trailing Blaze in their own system.”
That last bit is a reference to the fact that the new trial follows one in London, which saw all 11,500 of the Santander bikeshare’s bikes outfitted with the Blaze Laserlight tech.
Presuming everything goes well with the Citi Bike trial, the program’s other ~10,000 bikes will presumably be outfitted with the tech as well.
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