Over thirty Master’s students from Cambridge University visited KMi on Friday, to learn about our smart city project.

Project Director, Prof Enrico Motta gave an overview of the project while Dr Mathieu d’Aquin presented the work on crowd analysis in more detail, which is carried out in the context of the wider action on enabling intelligent mobility. The session was part of the students’ orientation programme as part of their Masters course on Technology Policy. Students visit examples of past and current infrastructure challenges, and MK:Smart provided a particularly interesting case study for them, since it deals with managing the potential strain on city infrastructure caused by the population growth expected in Milton Keynes.

Dr d’Aquin explained that we are building the MotionMap solution, which (among other things) will allow users to measure pedestrian ‘busyness’ in Milton Keynes. Trials have taken place in The Open University refectory to map the movements of customers, and more recently small-scale trials have been set up in Central Milton Keynes. The aim of these activities is to provide the initial building blocks of an app allowing people to make informed decisions about whether and how to travel in Milton Keynes.