No Place for Placer in Needham

January 16, 2026
• The town opted not to renew its subscription to an AI platform that analyzed people’s movements through Needham, indicating when, where and how many locals traveled to various places.

Visiting the Recycling and Transfer Station seems to work up residents’ appetites. The most popular destination before and after using the RTS is McDonald’s, according to data collected in the town’s year-long pilot with Placer.ai.

The AI location analytics tool pulls anonymized cell phone data to determine how and when people travel between destinations. The town’s pilot ended in December, and Deputy Town Manager Liz LaRosee talked through the information collected before the Select Board Tuesday night.

The board decided not to continue its use of the platform, which would have cost $24,150 for another year, LaRosee said. To add a consultant would run the town an additional $6,000 for the year. The initial trial was funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, Town Manager Katie King said at the meeting.

Still, the pilot yielded some specific data points.

In 2025, people visited the RTS more than 36,000 times, spending an average of 18 minutes at the site. That’s down nearly 10,000 visits from 2024 but up from just 27,000 total visits in 2023. The busiest day was Saturday, and the busiest time throughout the week was 1-2 p.m., according to the data LaRosee shared.

The McDonald’s on Chestnut Street ranked first among pre- and post-RTS visits, but users also stopped at Roche Bros., Volante Farms, the Great Plain Avenue Mobil station and a Natick vintage store called Garden of Hidden Treasures that has since closed.

While useful for tracking big community events, analyzing trends between departments and for potential grant funding, LaRosee said the platform’s data limitations, bugs, cost and required staff resources are some of its downsides.

“While I think Placer.ai provides valuable insights, its benefits require dedicated staff time for the data pulls and analysis, which is not consistently available, making it underutilized relative to its cost,” LaRosee said. She added that similar data can be used for free via Google Analytics.

Placer.ai is the latest example of the town testing the potential of AI-driven software. Town officials have discussed using AI in traffic studies and planning in recent years, and the Needham Town Branding and Seal Committee used generative AI to inform a draft of its town seal that Town Meeting will likely vote on this spring.

Select Board Chair Heidi Frail asked whether Placer.ai could be used in place of “some of the costly traffic studies” around town. LaRosee said the platform provided few insights into traffic, suggesting that the town’s new traffic signals provide real-time counts that are more specific.

LaRosee found its best application was in “understanding trends for municipal building operations and events.” She shared the number of attendees at the last two blue tree lightings, though she pulled the weather data for each event herself, as Placer.ai doesn’t gather that. That’s where a staffer or consultant would be needed in order to add back in different variables, LaRosee said.

The tracking also doesn’t distinguish between visitors and employees, who commute from other towns and stay much longer in one place. At the Needham Free Public Library for instance, about 40% of the 92,800 visits in 2025 originated outside of town, and people spent an average 84 minutes there, the data indicated. In reality, those figures may be inflated due to librarians and other staff, LaRosee said.

The insights might be interesting, but board member Kevin Keane said he doesn’t feel it’s worth the price tag.

“I’m surprised at how unuseful some of the information is,” Keane said. “I mean, that people are going to the RTS and do errands before and after — that’s called a Saturday. If you can’t suss out the employees that work at Town Hall, you see where they go before and after, it’s like, yes, they’re going to get gas before they commute home or pick up a prescription.”

For the Town Hall, Cappella Restaurant was the most popular destination post-visit, Placer.ai indicated, while the local Walgreens, CVS Pharmacy and Needham Service Gas Station ranked highly among pre-Town Hall visits. The busiest day was Saturday, likely due to town events.