The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is testing the use of Google Pixel phones to closely monitor potential damage to subway tracks.
An MTA project in partnership with Google has been testing the use of Google Pixel phones to detect potential defects in New York City’s subway track infrastructure.
The devices were placed inside train cars to capture oscillations and used to record sounds along the route. The goal is to make track inspections more accessible, as they are currently conducted manually.
Employees need to travel over a thousand kilometers to visually identify possible issues in the subway.
Google’s technology, called TrackInspect, uses data collected from the devices’ sensors to train artificial intelligence models to supplement manual inspections.
The company conducted four months of testing and was able to identify 92% of the defects recorded by human inspections.
“This technology would reduce the time spent identifying problems, allowing inspectors to focus on resolving structural failures rather than just searching for them,” explained MTA President Demetrius Crichlow.
The partnership will be expanded into a full-scale pilot project.
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