Using Data to Drive Innovation – Smart Lights

On 2nd July 2025, a workshop was held in Dublin as part of the Spinovate project, which aims to unlock the potential of connected bikes by generating rich sensor data to support safer, more sustainable cycling. The workshop brought together 20 participants from across Dublin’s councils, MOBY Bikes, digital innovation teams, and the EIT funding body. The attendees work in areas including digital twins, smart cities, open data, active travel, and bike share schemes.

The workshop involved three parts. First, presented by See.Sense, focused on how data can be collected through their smart bike lights, along with an overview of their past and ongoing projects, and a live demo of their existing dashboards.

This was followed by a presentation of the data-driven design framework and its associated activities, developed by the DIGIT Lab team and presented by Saeema Ahmed-Kristensen [1].

Participants were then divided into groups and asked to identify a specific challenge related to cycling and active travel. Each group selected one challenge, identified the key stakeholders involved, considered their needs, and explored what types of data would be most informative for supporting decisions via dashboards. Supported by the DIGIT Lab team, Saeema and Karl Johnson, the groups further developed their idea using the data-driven innovation canvas, working through key aspects such as value proposition, data sources, key barriers, and potential impacts.

The challenges explored by the groups included, how to actively encourage young children to take up cycling, how to ensure that the cycling infrastructure is regularly maintained, and designing and optimising cycle lanes/networks for safety and usability. A key area of discussion was the importance of data at junctions where cycling accidents are most likely to occur.

Many of the companies were interested in combining data from multiple sources and technologies to address their specific needs, for example, cameras with intelligent lighting systems, vehicle sensors (Vivacity), cycling infrastructure image collection (Lane Patrol), weather data, GIS and OpenStreetMap data, along with the data collected by See.Sense smart bike lights.

During the workshop, several key challenges were identified, and early stage concept ideas were developed in response. These concepts will now be taken forward by See.Sense to create prototype dashboards. The prototypes will be demonstrated back to the participating companies as part of an iterative design process informed by the challenges identified during the session.

Jack Kavanagh, Open Data Lead at Smart Dublin, supported the organisation of the workshop. Smart Dublin is a collaboration between Dublin’s four local authorities that uses open data and technology to tackle city challenges and improve quality of life. Reflecting on the event, Jack said:

“The workshop facilitated by the University of Exeter brought together stakeholders from Active Travel, Digital Services, and the wider Smart Dublin team to explore how See.Sense data can support the promotion of active travel and contribute to making our streets safer for everyone.”

Philip McAleese, CEO and Co-Founder of See.Sense, joined the workshop virtually from Australia and presented See.Sense’s data, ongoing projects, and dashboards. He highlighted the success of the event and value of the workshop in the ongoing dashboard project, stating:

“The data-driven innovation process facilitated and designed by the DIGIT Lab team, enabled us to develop ideas that addressed the needs of the key stakeholders, including city planners and shared bikes schemes, in gaining insight from data, the learning from the workshop will inform our dashboard designs.”

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