Okeenea - NY City and its 3rd generation of accessible pedestrian system

Inclusive Smart Cities & Buildings

NY City and its 3rd generation of accessible pedestrian system: aBeacon business case and experience

About us ?

BUILDINGS

Work to make public & private buildings accessible

PRODUCTS

Online Store for accessibility products

TECH

Smart Audio Signage for Visually Impaired People

DIGITAL

Digital solutions for the inclusive mobility

Since 1993, 70 experts, 4 companies specialized in accessibility, with one shared ambition : Make our cities & buildings more accessible for people with disabilities !

Our webzine www.inclusivecitymaker.com

Founder & CEO of 6 companies

Accessibility expert ISO, AFNOR International Speaker on accessibility : DOT NYC, Sign Design Society, Russia, Middle-East President of national accessibility union that gather about 70 companies & associations

Sylvain DENONCIN

aBeacon The new generation of Accessible Pedestrian Signals

A little bit of history

London, 1868: gas pedestrian signals

Cleveland, 1914: first electrical, with sound

Then from the 70s, birds landed everywhere in the US from Japan , with the permanent Cuckoo (N-S) Chirps (E-W)

Can help but : 1. Weak content 2. Confusion 3. Silent red 4. Noise pollution

Then APS pushed buttons

Better but: 1. Need to find it or to add locator tone 2. Hygiene issues/Covid 19 3. Temperature issues 4. Weak content 5. Difficult to keep direction to reach the other side of the street 6. Noise pollution

What About France ? ➢ User testing between 1993 and 2004 based on remote activation ➢ Only remote control activation ➢ 2004 : standardization ➢ 2006 : mandatory on new installations ➢ Directly integrated into the pedestrian ➢ 2021 : 250.000 APS installed

Good but: ➢ Radiofrequency remote control can activate all APS around ➢ Confusion is possible between 2 APS if they are too close ➢ No sound corridor ➢ Difficult to apply in other countries (868 MHz frequency – large street volume needed) ➢ No monitoring for cities

That’s why we developped aBeacon The 3rd generation of APS

Winner of the Call For Innovation of the DOT(*) of New York City

BLUEEO

ONLINE

SETTINGS TAB

BLUETOOTH REMOTE CONTROL

BACKOFFICE

MYMOVEO APP

EXISTING PUSHED BUTTONS

• works with your headphones = no need to have your phone in hand = no need to

Bip + vibratio n

Clic Once O

Clic To Choose O

29 volunteers , 3 days

(25th Nov, 7th Dec, 15th Dec 2019) 5mn briefing for the remote control then user testing

Next step : End of April 2022 User testing with Iphone app MyMOVEO & new remote control

Thank You! Sylvain DENONCIN CEO - sylvain@okeenea.com