Cork City Council to monitor city traffic through 12 key points

Cork City Council is set to monitor vehicles that pass through key points of the city each day as it seeks to improve its transport planning and “climate-related analysis”.

It has gone out to tender for a new contract for the monitoring solution across Cork, which will see 16 sensors across 12 locations tracking how people traverse through the city.

It includes sites at MacCurtain St, Penrose Quay, Washington St, and Infirmary Road, with other potential sites earmarked including the Lower Glanmire Rd, Kinsale Rd, and Carrigrohane Rd.

“The system shall provide continuous, bi-directional monitoring of multimodal categories across the designated sites,” 

it said.

“This shall include detection and classification of vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists, measurement of bi-directional flows [and] minimum accuracy of over 95% across all detected modes.”

This will include details of a vehicle such as its tax class, fuel type, and engine capacity in order to help track emissions. It will also integrate automatic number plate recognition data to help track the travel time between different sites. The council was clear that the contract would adhere to data protection laws, including anonymisation of registration numbers and no retention of identifiable personal data.

“All components and systems must comply with GDPR and Irish data legislation,” it said.

“No personal data, saved images or video footage shall be stored or retained.”

While transport in Cork city is still heavily reliant on the private car, recent data has pointed to significant numbers of journeys taken through sustainable means.

Last month, the National Transport Authority said that walking, wheeling, and cycling in the Cork Metropolitan Area saved 13,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year, which is equivalent to about 130,000 residents taking flights from Cork Airport to London Heathrow Airport.