Skip to main content

Safety After Dark trials for Sydney

Innovation Challenge seeks tech solutions making mobility safer for women
By David Arminas September 14, 2020 Read time: 1 min
South East Light Rail tram station at Town Hall in Sydney, Australia (© Bundit Minramun/Dreamstime)

Transport for New South Wales said it will trial data and technology solutions aimed at improving safety for women travelling at night in Greater Sydney.

Projects include artificial intelligence in CCTV to automate the detection of threatening behaviours, using datasets and algorithms to create routing that prioritises safety and a new platform for public safety and assistance.

The trials last six months, said Andrew Constance, minister for transport in the Australian state. They follow an announcement by the state’s transportation agency of the winners in the Safety After Dark Innovation Challenge.

The four winners are the University of Wollongong; data sharing platform She’s a Crowd; safety technology expert Guardian LifeStream; and Cardno/UNSW.

Transport for NSW said it had received 44 entries for the competition and the winners were selected by a panel after a virtual pitch event.

“The winners were chosen for their potential to meaningfully address real safety issues, and their ability to use creative and sophisticated new technologies to make a real difference,” Constance said.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Avoiding the call of the wild
    June 29, 2018
    Hitting an animal on a rural road can be fatal for all parties involved – but detecting and avoiding them requires clever technology. Andrew Williams carefully scans the horizon for details. Wildlife-vehicle collisions are an ever-present threat in rural areas around the world, and there is certainly nothing funny about suddenly finding an angry moose in your headlights on a sharp bend. A variety of detection and avoidance systems are currently in use or under development to help prevent your vehicle being
  • Bhatt: 'Critical opportunity' for cybersecurity
    July 22, 2021
    ITS America CEO Shailen Bhatt tells US Senate funds are needed to 'manage vulnerabilities'
  • Data handling important for autonomous vehicles
    December 8, 2016
    Data handling is becoming an ever-greater part of transportation and never more so than with autonomous vehicles, as Andrew Bardin Williams hears from some big names.
  • InfoConnect delivers accurate travel information on all levels
    August 1, 2012
    Deryk Whyte provides an overview of how the New Zealand Transport Agency's InfoConnect concept was developed. Historically, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) (formerly Transit New Zealand) has faced challenges in communicating effectively with road users, its customers, about highway-related events or incidents in a timely, accurate manner. Prior to 2007, Transit relied on a third-party organisation to collect and disseminate national road condition information. This often resulted in incomplete infor