Cities are shifting to smart technology for traffic to reduce energy waste and improve road safety as traffic congestion in urban areas becomes a growing problem. Apart from that, it will help save time for passengers and drivers as well as reduce emissions and reduce traffic congestion.
The technology behind this is based on two principal components: Hardware and software. The former is the executing subcomponent, while the latter is the command and control center. Both are complemented by advanced sensors and processing techniques such as ANPR (automotive license plate recognition) that captures data on the vehicles’ movements, and also technologytraffic.com detect traffic signals.
Depending on the method used, data can be processed on-device by smart traffic lights or transferred to a cloud. This type of solution allows for more sophisticated modeling and analysis to reduce traffic congestion and coordinate the schedules of public transportation. According to Carnegie Mellon University, this could cut travel time by 25%, signal wait times are reduced by 40%, and emissions are cut by 20%..
A well-designed traffic light system, in addition to reducing the time taken by traffic signals, can also improve the flow of pedestrians as well as of micromobility vehicles, such as e-bikes or e-scooters. This is because they are often unable to comply with traditional traffic signal preemption rules. In London for instance E-scooter crashes increased by 2800% during the first half of 2021. therefore it is crucial to incorporate them into traffic light control.
