Portland, Ore., Metro Tests Mobility Analytics Platform

A new urban travel planning tool called Replica, run by Sidewalk Labs, simulates transportation trends using anonymous data that is expected to be far more accurate than traditional analysis.

It’s no longer enough to simply know how many cars travel a highway or how many passengers crowd onto a train or bus. Transportation and regional planners say it helps to have a sense of where riders are coming from, where they’re headed, or even which bike paths are perceived as safest for women or children.This level of information remains elusive, if only because tracking it in such detail can raise ethical and privacy questions among residents and city leaders.

Metro, an elected regional government serving Portland, Ore., and 23 surrounding cities, is exploring a possible partnership with the platform Replica, run by Sidewalk Labs, a data-heavy next-generation urban design company owned by Alphabet, parent company of Google.