Smart technologies for traffic are a delicately woven network of processes that assist transport workers, drivers, and commuters regulate the flow and efficiency of traffic. Utilizing the latest IoT hardware, sensors routers, cellular technology and sensors smart traffic systems can automatically adjust control mechanisms such as traffic lights and freeway on-ramp meters bus rapid transit lanes highway message boards, and even speed limits. They also assist in forecasting changes in traffic demand and provide a variety of real-time information to road users.

A good example is the adaptive traffic signal system in Pittsburgh. When Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) professor Stephen Smith installed his first couple of traffic signals, which were merely experimental, in a highly congested part of the city’s East Liberty, he saw immediate results: drivers traveled 25 percent more efficiently and spent 40 percent less time idling in traffic jams than they had before.

The system collects data from technologytraffic.com/2021/12/29/generated-post-3 sensors that track the traffic flow and adjust their timings on the fly and also identifying pedestrians near intersections and giving them the time to traverse the street. The sensors then transmit their raw data to a central location where it’s processed by artificial intelligence and then distributed back to the intersections using 5G-enabled cell networks.

These intelligent systems also permit better, more precise modeling of risk-minimizing scenarios that a human traffic planner could not achieve and all in real time. This is a significant step towards Vision Zero, the goal of a safe road that ensures both vehicles and humans can travel together without colliding.