Skip to main content

Veovo to ease subway crowding in New York

Veovo is working with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to help ease crowded subways in New York as part of a one-year pilot. It follows an agreement made last year between the MTA and Partnership for New York City to launch the Transit Tech Lab to vet technologies designed to modernise the city’s public transit system. Natalia Quintero, director of the Transit Tech Lab, says: “With Veovo's sensors and analytics, the MTA has more reliable data to inform service changes and improve safe
August 7, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

Veovo is working with the 1267 Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to help ease crowded subways in New York as part of a one-year pilot.

It follows an agreement made last year between the MTA and Partnership for New York City to launch the Transit Tech Lab to vet technologies designed to modernise the city’s public transit system.

Natalia Quintero, director of the Transit Tech Lab, says: “With Veovo's sensors and analytics, the MTA has more reliable data to inform service changes and improve safety on platforms.”

Veovo’s Passenger Predictability solution is expected to provide pre-emptive alerts of potential overcrowding at stations, allowing the MTA to take preventive measures.

Veovo says its platform uses a combination of various sensor technologies along with advanced deep learning algorithms to provide a real-time overview of passenger volumes, how they move within and between stations, their average wait time and occupancy on trains.

Data is used to detect and predict irregularities such as repairs and delays. This enables the MTA to pinpoint the impact on occupancy and dwell times to better anticipate future passenger volumes and movement, the company adds.

Additionally, sharing the data could enable transit users to make more informed travel decisions, by taking into account factors like time of departure or choice of station.

During the pilot, the solution will be rolled out on the L-train line, coinciding with the Canarsie tunnel reconstruction, which was damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Running on empty
    May 2, 2018
    Drivers are an increasingly rare species on Europe’s commuter metros as unattended train operation is embraced. David Crawford takes a low-speed tour of the continent’s capitals to see what’s happening. Unattended train operation (UTO) is fast becoming the norm for Europe’s metros, on existing as well as new lines. November 2017 statistics published by the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) show the continent as having 28% of the global total of route km on lines operating at the ultimate
  • Apps help passengers avoided overcrowded public transport
    May 30, 2013
    David Crawford reviews innovations in the comfort zone. Anyone who rides public transport knows that, perhaps second only to delays, overcrowding is a critical part of the passenger experience,” says Nir Erez, CEO of Moovit, the Israel-based social transportation app developer. The app is aimed at taking real-time user feedback on transit and making it available to a wider audience of travellers. Currently available on iPhone and Android, it plans to add Windows 8 and other platforms in the future. Moovit i
  • Campaign calls for full funding for metropolitan transport
    February 9, 2015
    A US pressure group is pushing for full funding for metropolitan transport, with a campaign that could have implications for other public transport systems. The Move NY team campaign aims to bring a faster, safer, fairer transportation system to the greater New York metropolitan region. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is responsible for public transportation in the US state of New York, serving 12 counties in south-eastern New York, along with two counties in south-western Connecticut und
  • Brooklyn eyes Bogota’s BRT system
    June 17, 2016
    David Crawford considers the increased interest in bus rapid transit and looks that the latest trends. Bus rapid transit (BRT) is gaining an increasingly high profile in the US public transport agenda, for two main reasons. One is the potential for ‘trains on wheels’ to save substantially on installation costs as compared with other modes such as underground metros or light-rail transit. Another, highlighted in the case of New York City, is the value of having a rapid surface-based alternative available whe