I was on the way to a meeting yesterday when I walked right past this little grey box strapped to a light pole, at about knee level. I did a double take after thinking to myself “that thing looks like it’s designed to attract as little attention as possible."
The only identifying marks were the "eco-counter” label, and a tiny serial number. After some ethically grey internet sleuthing, I found this URL: http://public.visio-tools.com/?ECO07111540, which corresponds to the box. This little grey box at Fell and Scott streets, designed to be invisible in plain sight, is counting/recording/aggregating every bike that passes it, and sending the data wirelessly back to a server somewhere for someone to look at.
The same company makes similar models to count pedestrians, by measuring small fluctuations in temperature caused by your body heat as you walk by. They’re good enough to detect two people walking closely together. They make counters that are designed to be buried under dirt paths, hidden inside of posts, and all other variety of camouflage.
There are at least dozens of these around San Francisco. Maybe hundreds. I’m totally fascinated by them. Who is paying for them? Who’s looking at the data?
Our city has a private API.