The city of Pittsburgh and East Liberty-based startup Allvision IO are embarking on a mission to track down the city’s streetlights.
The city's PGH Lab program, a startup incubator, recently named Allvision as a member of its latest cohort. The team will be working with the Department of Innovation and Performance to create a database of the city’s streetlights for Pittsburgh's Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, or DOMI.
DOMI Director Karina Ricks said they chose streetlights because the city has about 60,000 of them, but doesn’t have a clear picture of where they’re all located.
"We have some of that information, but [Allvision's] data collection will help flesh that out," Ricks said. "Just to give us a more robust picture."
Ricks said the data would be used, in part, to look for light deficiencies in the city.
Allvision CEO Aaron Morris said this is the second collaboration between the company and DOMI. The team previously helped the city map street parking in the Strip District. The color-coded map is based on factors such as where free parking is located, fire hydrants and loading zones.
"You can get a snapshot of the day, what cars are there, and how they're parking," Morris said. "This gives the city a view in setting policies, like if they were going to introduce a new loading zone."
Allvision partners with autonomous vehicle companies and uses data collected from their LIDAR sensors. LIDAR uses light from a pulsed laser to create a visual representation of the environment that can identify objects in the process. The mapping of streetlights will take place over the next three months.
*This story was updated on Dec. 11 at 9:50 a.m.
