Powered By Footsteps
These lights at Canary Wharf were on BBC yesterday morning.
The company is looking for funding on Crowdcube.
I think that this sort of technology could have its uses. But possibly more when it is integrated into a common unit!
London and other cities have thousands of entry gates for the rail systems. Think how you use these!
You walk up and as you go through the barrier you either enter your ticket in a slot and pick it up again or touch your contactless card on a reader. You may not come to a full stop, but you will check your walk and this will result in you feet pressing a bit harder on the space between the sides of the gate. Thus a pressure pad in every gate would generate a bit of electricity for the station.
Ticket Gates At Homerton
Such an application could be part of a comprehensive energy system for a station, where the warmth from passengers, solar power from the roof and other power sources are collected to make the station less dependent on electricity from the mains. Network Rail have already used energy collection in stations like Blackfriars and the new London Bridge, so footfall collection could be another tool to help.
It could also be used in say a remote unmanned ticket gate on a station, such as where a platform is very long and some passengers need to entry and exit perhaps a hundred metres from the staff.
But although there is a large number of entry gates in the UK and worldwide, I would suspect that the gate manufacturers would develop their own systems.
I wish Pavegen well, but I don’t think I shall be investing.
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The Anonymous Widower 
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