Smart Technologies for Traffic

As urban traffic congestion is a major issue cities are turning to the latest technologies for traffic management to increase road safety and decrease wasted energy. This helps drivers and passengers save time, reduces emissions and decreases traffic congestion.

The technology behind this is based on two principal elements: Hardware and software. The first provides the executing component, while the latter functions as the command and control center. Both are equipped with the latest technology for sensing and processing tools, for instance ANPR (automotive plate recognition) which collects data about the movement of vehicles and can detect road signs.

Depending on the solution, smart traffic lights are able to process data on the device or send the data to a cloud storage. The latter offers more sophisticated models and predictive analysis to reduce congestion in traffic and align public transport schedules. This way, they can reduce the average travel time technologytraffic.com/2021/12/29/generated-post-3/ by 25%, reduce time to signal by 40%, and cut down on emissions by 20%, according to Carnegie Mellon University.

A smart traffic light system is not only able to reduce the time taken by traffic signals they can also improve the flow of pedestrians as well as of micromobility vehicles like ebikes or e-scooters. They’re not able to conform to the traditional traffic signal preemption laws. In London the e-scooter accident rate increased by 2,800% during the first quarter of 2021. It is therefore important to include them in traffic light control.