What Project Sidewalk does

Project Sidewalk is a non-commercial, crowdsourced sidewalk accessibility mapping platform developed and operated by the Makeability Lab at the University of Washington's Computer Science department, with a stated headcount of 11. Volunteers access a web-based interface (with multi-language support including English, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, German, and Portuguese) to virtually explore city streets via street-level imagery, label accessibility issues such as missing curb ramps, broken sidewalks, and obstacles, and validate labels placed by other users. The product suite comprises Explore, Validate, Label Map, Analyze, RouteBuilder, Gallery, Leaderboard, and a public Sidewalk API exposing accessibility data to developers. The platform is deployed across 20+ cities globally, with Chicago serving as the primary pilot — where users have mapped 1,072 miles covering 12.6% of the target area — and additional deployments in São Paulo (Brazil), Santiago and Rancagua (Chile), Chandigarh (India), multiple Mexican cities, Amsterdam (Netherlands), and more than a dozen U.S. municipalities.

The underlying technology combines human-in-the-loop crowdsourcing with computer vision / machine learning. User-generated labels train in-house ML models that automatically detect accessibility issues in street-level imagery, converting crowdsourced human labels into machine labels for expanded coverage. Visual analytics are exposed via interactive maps, neighborhood-level progress tracking, and a public API. The codebase is published as open source on GitHub (ProjectSidewalk/SidewalkWebpage), enabling developer and academic community engagement.

Project Sidewalk does not charge users or cities; it is funded entirely through research grants from institutional and philanthropic sources, including the National Science Foundation (Awards #1302338 and #2125087), Google, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans), and the University of Washington's Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE). Strategic research partners include the Makeability Lab (University of Washington), the University of Illinois Chicago's Institute on Disability and Human Development, and the pedestrian advocacy organization Liga Peatonal. The primary customer segments are city governments and urban planning departments (which consume accessibility data for infrastructure planning), people with mobility disabilities (who benefit from accessible routing), and urban planners and accessibility advocates.

Name

Project Sidewalk

Legal name

Project Sidewalk

Website

https://projectsidewalk.org

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Project Sidewalk is a free, open-source civic platform, operated by the University of Washington's Makeability Lab, that crowdsources sidewalk accessibility labels from volunteers and trains ML models on those labels to map accessibility barriers across more than 20 cities worldwide for use by city governments, urban planners, and people with mobility disabilities.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Civic Technology / Sidewalk Accessibility Mapping

NAICS

Administration of Housing Programs, Urban Planning, and Community Development (925)

akta.pro primary industry

Smart Cities & Urban Innovation Programs (Digital Planning, Civic Tech for Cities) (BPAIANAJ)

Keywords

• Sidewalk accessibility mapping
• Crowdsourced civic data
• Urban accessibility audits
• Pedestrian infrastructure data
• Accessibility research platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Seattle

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Research Grant Funding: Project Sidewalk is an academic research project funded by government grants and institutional funding. It operates as a non-commercial civic technology platform without revenue generation.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Project Sidewalk is a research crowdsourcing platform that lets remote volunteers walk through Google Street View-style panoramic imagery to identify and label sidewalk accessibility issues such as missing or narrow curb ramps, obstacles, and surface problems. The aggregated labels are combined with machine-learning classifiers to produce a city-scale accessibility dataset intended to help cities prioritize sidewalk repairs and audits, and to support accessibility research.

Product overview

Project Sidewalk is a crowdsourced sidewalk accessibility mapping platform that combines volunteer-based labeling with machine learning automation. The core product suite includes Explore (for labeling accessibility issues), Validate (for quality assurance), Label Map (for visualization), Analyze (for data analysis), RouteBuilder (for accessible routing), Gallery, and Leaderboard (for gamification). The platform operates across multiple international cities including Chicago, São Paulo, Santiago, Amsterdam, and others. A public API enables developers to build accessibility-aware mapping tools and integrate the data into third-party applications. User-generated labels train ML algorithms to automatically detect accessibility issues, creating machine labels for expanded coverage.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Project Sidewalk crowdsourcing web platform A browser-based crowdsourcing platform that lets remote volunteers explore panoramic street-view imagery and label sidewalk accessibility problems (such as missing or narrow curb ramps, obstacles, and surface issues) so cities can identify and prioritize infrastructure repairs. Intended for volunteer mappers, municipal accessibility and public-works programs, and accessibility researchers.
• Project Sidewalk accessibility dataset and city-level visualizations Aggregated, city-level dataset and visualizations of crowdsourced and model-prioritized sidewalk accessibility issues, intended for municipal governments, planners, and researchers who need an audit-ready map of where curb ramps and sidewalks need attention.

Quantifiable outcome

• Users mapped 1,072 miles of Chicago sidewalks (12.6% of target area)

Named customers3 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability3 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Makeability Lab at University of WashingtoncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe research lab that designs and operates Project Sidewalk. Located in the University of Washington Computer Science department.
• University of Illinois Chicago - Institute on Disability and Human DevelopmentcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerResearch collaborator on disability and accessibility studies; co-developer of the Chicago deployment with expertise in accessibility research.
• Liga PeatonalcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPedestrian advocacy organization contributing to sidewalk accessibility research and deployment, particularly in Latin American cities.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Mapbox: Mapbox provides mapping infrastructure, APIs, and SDKs used by many applications. Comparable in platform/API distribution model and developer ecosystem, though focused broadly on mapping rather than accessibility-specific data collection.
• HERE Technologies: HERE is a major mapping and location platform with global coverage and urban mobility solutions. Comparable as a broad mapping incumbent with the resources and partnerships to expand into accessibility-aware features.
• Google Maps: Google Maps is the dominant mapping platform with growing accessibility features including wheelchair-accessible routing and Street View imagery. As a broad incumbent, it has the resources and global imagery coverage to potentially match or exceed Project Sidewalk's accessibility data.
• Apple Maps: Apple Maps has integrated accessibility features including Look Around street-level imagery and accessibility-aware walking directions. As a major incumbent, it competes for the same use case of accessible urban navigation at global scale.

Direct peers

• Wheelmap: Wheelmap.org is a crowdsourced map for wheelchair-accessible places operated by Sozialhelden, covering millions of venues globally. It is the most directly comparable platform to Project Sidewalk in terms of volunteer-driven accessibility mapping, though Wheelmap focuses on venue entrances rather than sidewalk segments.
• OpenStreetMap: OpenStreetMap is a collaborative mapping project where volunteers contribute geographic data including sidewalk and accessibility tags via tools like Project Sidewalk's export. It shares the crowdsourced mapping model and overlapping contributor community, with a much broader geographic scope.
• AccessMap: AccessMap is an accessible routing project also originating from the University of Washington (Taskar Center), providing pedestrian and wheelchair routing using similar crowdsourced and ML approaches. Direct peer with overlapping research lineage and adjacent accessibility-routing mission.

Emerging players

• Moovit: Moovit is an urban mobility app focused on public transit and multimodal navigation, with accessibility features for users with disabilities. Adjacent peer serving similar accessibility-aware urban navigation use cases, particularly in transit-rich cities.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/projsidewalk
• GitHubgithub.com/ProjectSidewalk/SidewalkWebpage
• Facebookfacebook.com/projsidewalk
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/project-sidewalk

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Project Sidewalk