KNOWLEDGE BASED SYSTEMS INC — Department of Transportation SBIR Phase I: 142FH1

Description

Knowledge Based Systems, Inc. (KBSI) is pleased to propose the design and development of “MySidewalk,” a mobile application that will facilitate the crowd-sourced collection of sidewalk inventory and condition assessment data. The proposed tool will utilize the recent advances in social networks, mobile data collection, and data mining to provide integrated sidewalk datasets. The proposed tool will be developed with significant inputs from our partners, City of College Station, TX and Texas Transportation Institute. An important functionality is the ability to provide an integrated view of the collected sidewalk data and the existing reference datasets—such as ADA related data, public right-of-way assessment data, and Google walks data. This integrated view offered by MySidewalk will allow local, state, and federal entities to better manage and maintain sidewalk networks. In addition to inventorying existing sidewalk assets, MySidewalk will identify the most frequented informal pedestrian paths being used by the public, highlighting the need for potential new sidewalk infrastructure deployments. This data can be used as a starting point for new sidewalk deployment planning process. Finally, the tool will also provide the end-users of the mobile application with location based pedestrian friendly activities thereby ensuring continued end user engagement