The Copenhagen Wheel – Data Visualization


The Copenhagen Wheel is an inspiring concept from 2009.

Smart, responsive and elegant, the Copenhagen Wheel is a new emblem for urban mobility. It transforms ordinary bicycles quickly into hybrid e-bikes that also function as mobile sensing units. The Copenhagen Wheel allows you to capture the energy dissipated while cycling and braking and save it for when you need a bit of a boost. It also maps pollution levels, traffic congestion,
and road conditions in real-time.

I don’t care about the engine part of it, but it’s a great idea to use bicycles as mobile sensor units. A bustling bike population in a city would map out, for example, the air quality in the city in very detailed manner. Bikes can go anywhere, you know. This data in turn, would benefit our Urbanflow concept quite nicely. The better and more granular data, the better one could reuse it for citizens’ benefit.

The video features some nice data visualizations too.