As congestion in urban areas becomes a major challenge, cities are turning to advanced technologies for traffic to increase the safety of roads and cut down on wasted energy. Apart from that, it assists in reducing time for both passengers and drivers as well as reduce emissions and reduce traffic congestion.

The technology behind it is built on hardware and software. The first is the subcomponent that executes, while the second is the command and control centre. Both are supported by advanced processing and sensing technologies that include ANPR (automotive license plate recognition) that technologytraffic.com/2021/12/29/generated-post-3 captures data on the vehicles’ movements, and also detect traffic signals.

Depending on which solution is used, data can be processed on-device using smart traffic lights or sent to a cloud. The latter provides more advanced analysis and modeling to stave off traffic congestion and coordinate public transport schedules. According to Carnegie Mellon University, this can cut the average travel time by 25%, signal wait times are cut by 40%, and emissions are reduced by 20%.

A smart traffic light system, in addition to reducing the time it takes to get traffic signals and improving the flow of pedestrians as well as of micromobility vehicles like ebikes or e-scooters. They aren’t able to adhere to traditional traffic signal preemption laws. In London, for example crashes on e-scooters jumped by 2800% in the initial half of 2021, and therefore it is crucial to include them in traffic light controls.