Who We Are
At StreetLight Data, we bring real-world travel patterns to light. Just as streetlights illuminate our roadways at night, StreetLight Data creates analytics that shine a light on mobility behavior. We aim to transform transportation and urban planning with the power of data. With our StreetLight InSight® analytics platform, the transportation industry can design public spaces and transportation networks that are more efficient, sustainable, and safe.
Did You Know?...
Wabash, Indiana became the first city to illuminate its streets with electric lights in March 1880. Despite public opposition, the town council replaced the city's gas lights with electric ones because they were more cost-effective.1
1Source: Tocco, Peter. "The Night They Turned the Lights On in Wabash." Indiana Magazine of History, December 1999, 350-63.
Our Mission
Our mission is using Big Data to understand travel patterns easy, intuitive, and affordable. Through our pioneering approach to the use of location data, we will:
Help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and petroleum use in vehicles, especially by reducing miles traveled (in single occupancy, petroleum powered vehicles).
Improve transportation access and equity.
Provide transportation leaders with data that improves project prioritization, resource deployment, and public engagement.
Equip civic officials with better data to inform their policies and initiatives.
Create a new source of knowledge about how people use cities and make that knowledge available to researchers.
Set the bar for data privacy in mobile analytics.
Our Story
StreetLight Data is the first company to make using real-world transportation data easy, efficient, and affordable. It was founded in 2011 by Laura Schewel, a sustainable transportation expert who was frustrated by the lack of empirical transportation data available. Given how important transportation is for the environment, quality of life, and the economy, this situation seemed absurd to Laura. She began researching new approaches with emergent geospatial “Big Data” for her PhD at UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group and ultimately founded StreetLight Data.
In 2011, co-founder Paul Friedman joined the team, bringing deep experience in commercial data products. In the years that followed, the StreetLight Data team developed the first on-demand platform for transforming mobile device data into actionable transportation analytics, StreetLight InSight®. The San Francisco-based company has now raised nearly $30 million in financing, operates a regional offices in Richmond, VA and Vancouver, BC, and works with hundreds of public and private sector clients across Canada and the US.
Did You Know?...
Driving-for-shopping is nearly 30% of miles driven in the U.S., but very few transportation analyses or planning programs deal with this type of driving. Our Metrics make analyzing these types of trips possible.
StreetLight Data Milestones
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Ready to Get Started?
Use the link below to watch demo videos of StreetLight InSight® and learn how you can create Travel Metrics for Urban Planning and Transportation in minutes.