Peachtree Corners Transforming Urban Planning with Pedestrian Quantifying
Peachtree Corners, widely regarded as one of the United States’ most advanced smart cities, has strengthened its reputation by partnering with UPCITI to deploy a next-generation pedestrian counting system. Sitting at the heart of Georgia’s fast-growing metro-Atlanta region, this innovative municipality has become a proving ground for emerging technology, housing an array of cutting-edge solutions that support safer streets, efficient mobility, and more responsive urban planning.
Its latest initiative marks the start of a three-year deployment at the city’s well-used Town Green, where UPCITI’s edge-computing sensors will monitor crowd patterns and pedestrian flow. Designed with strict privacy-by-design principles, the system helps city officials better understand movement across the public realm, enhance event management, and support long-term planning, all without compromising citizen trust.
Privacy by Design at the Core
At a time when data governance continues to dominate global conversations, Peachtree Corners has prioritised technologies that deliver actionable insights while respecting personal privacy. UPCITI’s low-resolution camera sensors detect pedestrians and vehicles, but crucially do not collect identifiable information. No faces are captured. No individuals are tracked. Nothing personally recognisable is stored.
Larissa Paredes Muse, Strategic Relationships Manager at UPCITI, underscored this commitment: “Our mission at UPCITI is to help cities make safer, smarter, and more sustainable decisions through ethical technology.” She added: “Built around Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), our sensors protect individual privacy while providing powerful, actionable insights for the communities its deployed in.”
This focus on privacy aligns with a growing international shift toward ethical data infrastructures. Across Europe, GDPR-led urban analytics frameworks have already advanced municipal transparency and citizen protection. By adopting similar standards, Peachtree Corners positions itself alongside global leaders in responsible smart city design.
A Scalable Solution for Real-Time Decision-Making
Peachtree Corners hosts more than 80 annual events at its Town Green, attracting upwards of 40,000 visitors. Managing footfall, safety, and public amenities across such a dynamic civic hub requires accurate, real-time data.
UPCITI’s system, built around lightweight hardware and intuitive dashboards, helps city teams understand how and when people move across the space. The sensors quantify crowd volume, show changes in pedestrian direction, and help identify areas where congestion forms. This insight gives planners the tools to refine layouts, adjust schedules, and make resource decisions grounded in evidence rather than guesswork.
According to city officials, the dashboard’s accessibility and cost-efficient design also make it an attractive model for other municipalities. With hundreds of US towns exploring smart technologies as part of infrastructure modernisation, UPCITI’s replicable solution offers both financial and operational advantages.
Enhancing Safety and Community Experience
Community wellbeing remains a priority in Peachtree Corners’ urban strategy, and the new deployment supports those aims. By mapping pedestrian behaviour, city teams can anticipate risk areas and implement mitigation measures that improve safety during normal daily activity and during major events.
Seth Yurman, Deputy City Manager, emphasised this benefit: “Community safety is always top of mind for us as we consistently look for ways to make our city safer and smarter.” He continued: “By analyzing how people move through Town Center, for example, we can design better public spaces, plan more efficiently for events, and ensure pedestrian safety in real time.”
The data also helps inform decisions on lighting, seating, accessibility features, pathways, emergency response routes, and signage. For a city built on modern infrastructure, refining these elements continuously ensures that public spaces remain welcoming and well-designed.
Powered by 5G for Instantaneous Analysis
As one of the first real-world 5G smart cities in the United States, Peachtree Corners benefits from high-speed, low-latency connectivity that allows UPCITI’s sensors to transmit data instantly. These capabilities drive more responsive event management and enable some of the fastest pedestrian-analysis workflows currently available.
The city’s 5G backbone, provided through partnerships with major telecom operators, supports a portfolio of advanced mobility solutions including connected traffic systems, autonomous shuttles, solar roadways, and EV infrastructure. Integrating UPCITI’s system into this ecosystem builds further capability for real-time decision-making across the city’s digital platforms.
Curiosity Lab: A Living Testbed for Smart Technologies
The deployment is part of a wider collaboration with Curiosity Lab, Peachtree Corners’ living laboratory for emerging technologies. Owned and operated by the city, the lab provides innovators with a unique testing environment offering a three-mile autonomous vehicle lane, intelligent traffic systems, smart streetlights, and North America’s first municipal IoT Central Control Room.
Curiosity Lab has also highlighted UPCITI’s involvement at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, where the technology company is showcasing its privacy-preserving sensors to global delegates. This international visibility reinforces the role Peachtree Corners plays in shaping future-ready urban systems.
A City Known for Technological Firsts
Peachtree Corners, often referred to as the heart of #SiliconOrchard, is home to more than 45,000 residents and an equal number of jobs, many linked to pioneering technology companies. The city’s reputation as a smart-city innovator is built on a series of impressive firsts, including teleoperated e-scooters, fully autonomous community shuttles, a solar roadway, and the region’s largest fast-charging EV hub.
Its blended approach to public-private collaboration serves as a template for municipalities seeking innovation without sacrificing citizen experience.
UPCITI’s Global Reach and Urban Focus
Founded in 2017, UPCITI has grown into one of the sector’s most recognisable privacy-first analytics providers, with deployments across 17 countries. Its multi-use sensors can simultaneously monitor parking, traffic, pedestrian activity, waste, lighting, and noise, giving cities a comprehensive understanding of urban dynamics.
With successful deployments already in major US cities such as Columbus and Albany, the partnership with Peachtree Corners marks the company’s first venture into Georgia. For urban planners around the world, this deployment offers another example of how municipalities can adopt meaningful, ethically governed smart systems.
Moving Urban Infrastructure Forward
This collaboration marks a significant step forward in the development of scalable smart city solutions. By combining privacy-led design with real-time analytics and high-speed connectivity, Peachtree Corners and UPCITI demonstrate how cities can evolve without compromising the rights or comfort of the people who call them home.
The deployment underscores a future in which data supports better experiences, safer communities, and long-lasting infrastructure improvements that benefit both residents and visitors.
