Pilot program aims to help blind, visually impaired

An executive for the Paris-based company Connecthings says a pilot program it started last month with Capital Metro to provide real-time bus information to the blind and visually impaired in Austin is going well and he hopes it will expand to the entire city.

Louis-Alban Batard-Dupré, the company’s North America vice president, said Connecthings began working on the accessibility project a year ago. He said Connecthings will soon seek additional beta testers to gain more feedback and improve the pilot program, which concludes at the end of this month.

“We want to have more users,” about 10 to 20 more, he said. “We want to have an impact and help people on their daily commute. Downtown is way too small. We need to have it citywide.”

Connecthings specializes in beacons, which are small Internet-connected devices that can make it easier to geolocate a person’s position indoors, or, in the case of the Cap Metro pilot, to help the visually impaired get real-time bus schedule information and alerts for delays.

The beacons, which use Bluetooth technology, can communicate with “BlindSquare,” a GPS mapping app, and provide more precise locations for bus stops and guide users to them.

The pilot program, which is currently focused downtown around Second Street with about 15 bus stops, can alert a rider to changes in bus scheduling or cancellations.

Batard-Dupré said a user could be waiting on a bus but be unaware that a posted sign says the stop is currently closed.

“We wouldn’t need to put people on the street to inform the blind,” he said. “With the beacon, they would know that the