AI to keep eye on crowdsSubscriber Exclusive

The city of Camas will start using artificial intelligence to better understand how many people attend city events, drive Camas’ streets and take advantage of its parks and trails.

“In our strategic plan, we want to really be heavily reliant on data and numbers. This gives us that opportunity,” said Bryan Rachal, the city’s communications director.

Rachal said the city’s department heads have a three-year contract with Placer.ai, a Los Altos, Calif.-based location analytics company that synthesizes foot traffic information for private businesses and public organizations using geolocation data collected by third-party cellphone apps.

Placer.ai clients include cities such as Denver and tourism agencies including Visit California and the Downtown Seattle Association.

“They’re able to track certain things and get hard and fast numbers on events,” Rachal said. “It will give us the opportunity to say how many people are attending events at certain locations.”

The city’s three-year contract will cost between $20,000 and $23,000 per year, according to Camas Parks and Recreation Director Chris Witkowski, who brought the idea to the city’s department heads earlier this summer.

Witkowski said he is particularly interested in using Placer.ai’s data to better understand where users may be coming from — including other areas of Southwest Washington or Oregon.

The data is anonymous, Witkowski said, but the company does have the ability to give a general sense of where people are coming from before entering a park or attending a city event. It also can show where they went afterward.

“With that information, we will be able to know how many Camas residents are using our parks and how many are coming from out of town or … out of state,” said Witkowski, who started with the parks department in May.

That information could be crucial to members of the city’s parks and recreation commission, who have long sought solutions to overcrowding and parking at Camas’ popular Heritage Park. The east county park attracts scores of boaters, kayakers and paddleboarders hoping to cool off at Lacamas Lake during the summer months, as well as hikers, runners and bikers who use the city’s 6.9-mile, lakeside Heritage Park Trail year-round.

“We can look at Heritage Park to say, ‘OK, we get X number of users from the state of Oregon at this park,’” Rachal said. “Is there something we should be doing to monetize that situation? Are we using the park to our best abilities? Should we consider charging for parking?”

The information may also reduce pressure on the city’s overburdened maintenance crews, Rachal said, by showing city leaders exactly which city amenities attract the most users and need more frequent upkeep.

Privacy concerns

Privacy concerns have plagued data broker and location analytics firms that use information collected by apps on cellphones to generate foot traffic reports, Placer.ai among them.

Placer.ai previously said the company is committed to protecting anonymity and “does not sell or provide data that can be traced back to individual users.”

“This is anonymous information,” Witkowski told Camas parks commissioners in July. “There is no personal information, and they do not track K-12 schools, health clinics, police stations or religious facilities.”

Witkowski said he wants to reassure Camas residents that Placer.ai does not provide detailed location information on individuals.

“We do not receive any individual’s information, and there are a number of limitations. We cannot get personal information off this data,” Witkowski said.

Placer.ai did not respond to requests for comment.

Finding trends

Public parks, however, are fair game for the company’s data synthesizing capabilities, Witkowski said.

“When I saw what they could do, in terms of giving information on park counts, I thought it could be extremely beneficial,” Witkowski told The Columbian last week.

“The first thing I want to take a look at are our high-profile parks,” Witkowski said. “I want to understand what kind of user visitation we have at Heritage Park because of the boat launch and parking issues.”

Witkowski also wants to track usage in some of Camas’ lesser known parks.

“It’s always easy to focus on the bigger parks, but it’s key to know how many people are using our smaller parks, our neighborhood parks, so we know where to focus our resources,” he said.

City department heads will be able to get some historical data as well, Witkowski said.

“We can go back seven years and look at trends,” Witkowski said.

As for the company’s accuracy, Witkowski said Placer.ai representatives told him the firm has a 93 percent accuracy rate.

“I have to take their word for it. We’re not going to ground-truth their numbers,” Witkowski told parks commissioners last month. “I think it gets us pretty close. Nothing out there is going to be 100 percent.”

Kelly Moyer: 360-735-4674; kelly.moyer@columbian.com