A headset that shows cyclists safer routes through the city in realtime and a projectable blind-spot visualisation for buses and lorries are among the speculative prototypes developed by a team from Future Cities Catapult.
The five mock-ups for Connected Cyclists all envision possible futures for creating a “soft infrastructure” for cyclists – a layer of digital information that can help make city roads safer to navigate and help riders choose more intelligent routes.
“Many cities are spending serious money, time and attention on improving the ‘hard infrastructure’ of cities to make cycling safer, more convenient, more attractive,” explained Dan Hill, chief design officer at Future Cities Catapult and Dezeen columnist.
“Yet as well as this — and clearly investment in such hard infrastructure is key — there is potential of a soft infrastructure which can be overlaid on existing urban fabric to further support cycling, which takes advantage of contemporary technologies such as wearables, Internet of Things, real-time sensor data, and so on.”
The first two mock-ups are driven by a Google-glass style augmented reality visor that flips down from a standard cycle helmet to create a transparent screen in front of the cyclist’s eyes.
Known as a Heads-Up Display, this kind of technology is already used on ski goggles to transmit information and push notifications. The Future Cities Catapault team believes this could be adapted to show contextual information on a cyclist’s surroundings and offer simple route-finding help.
Another development of this would integrate icons and beacons into the display to help develop the “imageability” of places and moments along any given route.
“Imageability is a term coined by groundbreaking urban planner/designer Kevin Lynch to describe the process by which we learn how to recognise and become familiar with our environmental surroundings and learn journeys,” explained the team.
“On a bike, we particularly need cyclists to develop a heads-up stance, looking at the environment around them, rather than down at a phone. This prototype explores how technology might support a learning process based on imageability, such that the device and its interface essentially disappears over time, and the rider pays attention to the city around them.”
A third proposal is a device that is mounted to the handle bars of a bicycle, gathering air-quality information and telling cyclists how polluted the streets ahead might be, offering alternative paths based on fewer exhaust fumes and other pollution factors.
The blind-spot visualisation prototype is an attempt to address one of the biggest causes of death for urban cyclists – particularly in London – by using a small side-mounted projector attached to the sides of HGVs, buses and other large vehicles.
The device would project an outline of the vehicles blind spot – the area at the side that is invisible to driver due to the angle of the wing mirrors and windows – so cyclists can avoid moving into the space.
Read more on Dezeen: http://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/02/future-cities-catapult-prototype-designs-augmented-reality-urban-cycling-safer/
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