More than a way to get from A to B

The Copenhagen Wheel aims to transform bicycle use in Denmark’s largest city through promoting urban sustainability and building new connections between the city’s cyclists. In this work, bicycles become smart mobile sensing devices that map the real-time flow of people and environmental conditions in Copenhagen. This is achieved through strategically placing small location and environmental sensors on bicycles to gather information as people ride through the city. This data then powers applications of benefit to citizens, city municipalities and researchers interested in understanding more about city dynamics.

The components of the project are an electric bicycle wheel that can be easily retrofitted into any regular bicycle and location and environmental sensors which are powered by the bike wheel and in turn provide data for a variety of applications.

The Copenhagen Wheel project demonstrates that small intelligent implementations can lead to major changes. This work will be displayed at the 2009 Cop 15 UN Climate Summit where the next version of the Kyoto Protocol will be signed.

Background In 2007, MIT’s SENSEable City Lab and the Municipality of Copenhagen began a three-year research partnership to investigate how digital technologies can be harnessed to understand city dynamics in Copenhagen with a view to sustainability and livability.

Wired Magazine

The Boston Globe

Scientific American

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Previous research undertaken during the three year partnership has included:

Real Time Copenhagen. Displayed in Copenhagen on October 10, 2008, Real Time Copenhagen captured the movement of people in real-time during the city’s Kulturnatten (culture night) and overlaid this information with events that were taking place during the evening night. <see more>

Student Workshop - Copencycle. Run between February and June 2008, the student workshop was used to generate proposals for how digital information and sensing technologies could be used to improve the biking experience in Copenhagen.
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Project Team
Carlo Ratti | Director, Senseable City Lab
Christine Outram | Project Leader
Assaf Biderman | Assistant Director

Principle Partner
The City of Copenhagen