Uploaded on 2017-04-13 by Paola Castaneda

This photo was taken at a very busy intersection in the heart of Oxford. Cyclists, pedestrians (many tourists!), and cars often encounter each other at this junction. Around a year ago, the street lights that used to direct traffic were covered by the orange bags visible in the photo and, since then, traffic has "directed" itself. The information visible here mainly relates to navigation: signs signal the way to some of the city's main attractions; roads are marked with their name; the lanes are painted to designate cyclist and car spaces. The invisible information I would like to highlight relates to the movement of people through this junction: change in rate of accidents since covering of traffic lights; number of cars/pedestrians/cyclists stopping at each end; time spent per person at the junction (i.e. does the absence of traffic lights generate confusion?); direction of trajectories that pass through this junction. (The tan building on the left hand side is the Oxford Martin School. Interestingly, atop the roof of this building there is a camera that produces a live feed which can be watched here: http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/webcam/ )