A Crowdsensing Solution for Tracking Bicycle Path Conditions

Abstract

The Flemish Agency for roads and traffic carries out bi-annual measurements to make an inventory of the physical conditions of bicycle paths. This is currently an expensive endeavor, performed by government employees using dedicated and expensive equipment. Moreover, these measurements are usually only performed once and are limited to larger bicycle paths. This results in partial (50% of bicycle paths being measured) and out-of-date measurements. This paper presents the design and development of a crowdsensing solution to measure bike paths conditions daily. An embedded device accompanied with a software platform allows us to update the inventory of the path conditions more frequent, accurate and cost-friendly. Overhead for cyclists is minimized and security is taken into account as the devices are used in uncontrolled environments.