Nice is the French city with the largest number of cameras, with 3,865 in its Urban Supervision Center to date. Thirty-two of them will be equipped with Cityvision software from Wintics, a classification and counting solution based on AI that will allow the analysis of dangerous behaviors of 8 modes of movement and count pedestrians, cars, trucks, two-wheelers and even scooters.

It is from the Supervision Center that Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice, presented on June 2nd innovative solutions for his city and announced that 32 of the traffic cameras would be equipped with AI.

Cityvision software from Wintics

Based in Paris and co-founded in 2017 by Quentin Barenne, Matthias Houllier and Levi Viana, Wintics is an innovative software company specializing in intelligent video analytics with the ambition of making mobility smoother and more sustainable through AI. Its video analytics products are aimed at three types of mobility infrastructure managers: local authorities, public transport managers and highway managers, in 5 different countries.

The Cityvision software automatically extracts relevant information from the cameras and provides Wintics’ customers with powerful video analysis applications: traffic analysis, monitoring of bicycle lanes, management of intersections, freeway toll systems, analysis of crowds in public transport… It is notably used by the city of Paris to analyze the use of bicycle paths and by the RATP to analyze the number of users.

Wintics was a winner in 2018 and 2019 of Datacity, an innovation program of the city of Paris. In 2020, it was selected by the Trusted AI start-up and last year, received the Greenwich Innovation Label from the Ministry of Ecological Transition.

Quentin Barenne, co-founder of Wintics, said:

“Cameras have been around in cities for a long time, and their number has increased significantly in recent years. Before the advent of deep learning, the vast majority of these images remained untapped. Today, this huge volume of data can be analyzed and becomes a great tool to better understand how cities work and therefore to better pilot them.”

The use of cameras equipped with Cityvision software in Nice

Christian Estrosi advocates facial recognition to ensure the safety of his city. Thus, the software “Any Vision” provided by the company Confidentia, had been tested for 48 hours during the carnival in 2019, 1,000 people had volunteered. If Cityvision will recognize a person in the crowd, it will not be based “on this much maligned technology” according to the mayor.

In addition to counting the different modes of locomotion, Cityvision will produce statistics and thus improve road safety. Local authorities will be able to use the analyses within the framework of Nice’s ZFE, the low-emission zone, to obtain indicators of traffic trends. In addition, this software will make it possible to monitor violations such as failure to obey red lights and one-way streets.

According to Christian Estrosi, this will make it possible to:

“diligent on site operational means aimed at dissuading certain recurrent or occasional civic behavior or study the implementation of preventive equipment.”

Permanent innovation

Nice City Hall is banking on new technologies and interactivity with its citizens to make progress in terms of safety, pollution control and traffic.

Starting July 1, a number of the city’s traffic cameras will be coupled with the free Allo Mairie application, downloaded by nearly 95,000 users, which will make it possible to see in real time the state of traffic on Nice’s main roads, such as the Promenade des Anglais, and to answer questions from road users.

Another innovation: the 65 mobile cameras will be replaced by new generation cameras equipped with solar panels, autonomous and environmentally friendly.

Translated from La ville de Nice équipe 32 de ses caméras de la solution Cityvision de Wintics