TORONTO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today, Ecopia AI (“Ecopia”) announces a partnership with the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and the Chicago Metropolitan Planning Agency (CMAP) to provide a full HD map of 26 land coverage and transportation features to Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) throughout the State of Illinois – covering the third largest metropolitan area in the United States and an area of more than 12,000 square miles. This detailed map and its features will ensure that DFOs have accurate and up-to-date information at scale for decision-making related to transportation, housing, economic development, open spaces, environment and other other quality of life issues.
CMAP faces challenges common to large metropolitan areas. With 286 member municipalities, standardizing and maintaining regional data can be a complex undertaking. This is not just a problem for large metropolitan areas; IDOT’s decision to join the partnership expands access to Ecopia data for every MPO in the state, helping Illinois stakeholders improve transportation projects and programs unique to their region. Ecopia looks forward to supporting IDOT and CMAP in their mission to provide easily scalable resources and build local capacity for all communities.
“Partnering with Ecopia gives us an unprecedented level of detail and precision on northeast Illinois,” said CMAP Executive Director Erin Aleman. “These comprehensive and up-to-date views of transportation and land cover will help CMAP and local decision-makers drive innovation and develop projects that serve our region’s 8.5 million people.
By leveraging its advanced artificial intelligence-based mapping systems, Ecopia can ingest high-resolution geospatial imagery data and produce transportation-related map features with high accuracy at large scales. Specifically, Ecopia extracts 26 distinct features, including land cover types (roads, sidewalks, crosswalks, etc.) and advanced transportation features (turn lanes, medians, stop lines, etc.) for provide a comprehensive view of the region’s land use and pedestrian mobility network. Manually scanning these features would have taken DFOs thousands of hours, but Ecopia is able to extract them all from up-to-date imagery with human precision in record time.
These 26 features are used by state and local agencies to support a number of applications, including:
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State and regional long-term transportation plans
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Multimodal analysis
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Active transportation planning
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Vision Zero initiatives
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Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Compliance
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Stormwater and Flood Management
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Performance based capital program tracking
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Analysis of intersections and corridors
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Canopy management
“Ecopia is excited to provide IDOT and CMAP with the high-quality map data needed for regional and community planning,” added Bill Singleton, vice president of sales at Ecopia. “We are committed to using AI for good and are proud to work with Illinois MPOs to improve the quality of life for millions of people.”
“IDOT is excited to resource metropolitan planning organizations with an innovative data tool for statewide critical infrastructure,” said Holly Bieneman, Director of IDOT’s Planning and Programming Office.
For more information on Ecopia, click here. To see our sample HD maps, click here.
This work will be supported by Woolpert under NOAA’s Coastal Geospatial Services (CGSC) contract.
About the Chicago Metropolitan Planning Agency (CMAP)
The Chicago Metropolitan Planning Agency (CMAP) is the comprehensive planning organization for northeast Illinois. The agency and its partners have developed ON TO 2050, a long-term plan to help the seven counties and 284 communities in our region address issues of transportation, equity, environment and quality of life. Visit the CMAP website for more information: www.cmap.illinois.gov.
About the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT)
Every day, IDOT strives to design and maintain a world-class transportation system that improves the safety and quality of life for its citizens and visitors by reducing congestion and increasing mobility. This system also facilitates and enhances the interconnectivity of all modes of transportation for the efficient movement of people and goods to support the national and global competitiveness of the state. To learn more, visit https://idot.illinois.gov/
About Ecopia AI
Ecopia is on a mission to create a digital twin of the Earth. We use artificial intelligence to convert high-resolution images into high-definition (HD) vector maps. These maps form a digital representation of reality and are integrated into business intelligence applications, providing unique insight at scale. Ecopia’s HD vector maps are used for hundreds of commercial and government applications in over 100 countries around the world. For more information, visit www.ecopia.ai.