Safe Ways to Share the Street

Curiosity Lab is increasing its involvement in roadway safety by partnering with companies creating technology to keep cyclists unharmed.

Whether you’re a cyclist or a motorist — or both — few people disagree that there needs to be a way for both modes of transportation to safely share the road. Technology incubator Curiosity Lab and the City of Peachtree Corners have partnered with several organizations seeking ways to make that happen. 

Research and development does not have to be dry and boring. Sometimes it can be a fun as a bike ride. That’s why the City reached out to a professional cycling race coordinator to bring a leg of a well-known event to Peachtree Corners.

“We’ve enjoyed seeing Curiosity Lab continue to generate unique opportunities for the city,” said City Manager Brian Johnson. “And an opportunity kind of fell into our lap, through Curiosity Lab’s partnerships and interactions, for us to have a professional cycling race here in Peachtree Corners.”

There are generally three types of cycling races — indoors in a velodrome (think Olympics), a road race that starts at one point and ends at another (like the Tour de France) and a criterium, a closed race on city streets on a course that loops over the same space over and over for a period of time. That is what’s coming to Peachtree Corners.

The Curiosity Lab Criterium will take place Wednesday, April 26 from 3 to 10 p.m. at Peachtree Corners City Hall. With Curiosity Lab being a 5-G enabled, 500-acre living laboratory ecosystem designed as a proving ground for mobility and smart city emerging technologies, it’s the perfect location to test out safety features for road users who aren’t in automobiles.

Safe travels for everyone on the road

The acronym VRU stands for vulnerable road user — all the users of public right-of-way or roads that are not in automobiles and, as a result, are less protected. Pedestrians, cyclists, people on e-scooters, mopeds or motorcycles fall under that definition.

“There is a movement within the transportation industry to represent VRUs with technology to help automobiles or the drivers of automobiles …to make them more aware of the vulnerable road users,” said Johnson. 

An example is the technology that allows cars to detect objects. If you’re backing up and something gets in the way, the car will beep to let you know there is an object in the way. However, if an object is outside of the range of the detection technology and is coming from a direction in which you don’t have detection, the automobile won’t know it, because its own technology isn’t picking it up.

Companies are working to make technology that will push messages to the automobile so that it knows there is a vulnerable road user in the vicinity and where it is.

“That message is called a BSM, a basic safety message,” said Johnson. “It can come up on the dashboard of the car, notifying the driver of that VRU.”

That technology is being deployed by a company called Spoke, which aims to transform road safety and rider connectivity by delivering a connected IoT ecosystem for vulnerable road users. Spoke has teamed up with various companies, such as car manufacturer Audi, Qualcomm as chipset manufacturer and BMC Bike, a Swiss bike manufacturer.

“All of those companies have a partnership in which they’re deploying this technology, and now they have a good location to deploy it for the first time on public streets,” said Johnson.

Now for the fun stuff

Besides the opportunity to put this new technology in real-world situations, sponsoring a criterium is a great way to bring a new group of people to the area and remind residents about the gem they have in their backyard.

The Curiosity Lab Criterium is part of Speed Week, a premier week-long event on the U.S. Pro Cycling Circuit that draws cyclists from around the world, including Olympic medalists and world and national champions.

In 2022, the professional men’s and women’s event drew cyclists from 36 states and 19 countries.

USA Cycling manages a criterium series throughout the entire country. The race calendar generally starts in the Southeast because the weather tends to be warmer than most of country earlier in the year. As former city manager of Anniston, Alabama, Johnson witnessed first-hand how the circuit works.

Amateurs, kids and spectators welcome

“When I was there, we were the very first race on the circuit,” said Johnson. “So I have some experience in managing — not directly, as there is a race director that actually runs the event — but by being the city manager of a city that had it.

“Back in the day, I used to race in them. As an amateur, you can race in them,” he added.

The daylong event begins with preliminary races for children, and then progresses with different categories for amateurs.

The criterium is more fan-friendly than a road race. Spectators can set up in one area and see riders go by several times. “This a very cool way to watch professional cyclists, especially when married up with things that make it unique for the family, like food trucks and vendors,” said Johnson.

The play-by-play announcer for the event will be Francisco “Frankie” Andreu, who was Lance Armstrong’s first roommate back when they were racing in the Tour de France. There will be bike manufacturers and displays of lots of cool new technology.

“It’ll be kind of like a mini festival,” said Johnson. “What this does is it gets the community a pretty unique, cool event that we wouldn’t have had, had it not dropped in our path.”