Alphabet plans analytics platform to help cities solve traffic problems

Sidewalks Labs, a unit of Alphabet, is teaming up with the U.S. Department of Transportation to build a data and analytics platform that promises to help cities understand where people go and how they get there.The goal is to help better design transportation infrastructure to suit a city's needs.The platform, called Flow, will rely on one of Alphabet's core strengths: collecting, analyzing and visualizing vast amounts of data.The system will help cities identify congestion and areas that are un