A delicately interwoven system of processes, smart technologies for traffic can help transport workers commuters, drivers and drivers improve efficiency and flow of traffic. Making use of advanced IoT hardware, sensors routers, cellular technology and sensors, intelligent traffic systems can automatically adjust control mechanisms such as traffic lights as well as freeway on-ramp meters bus rapid transit lanes highway message boards technologytraffic.com/ and even speed limits. They also aid in forecasting changes in traffic demand and offer a variety of real-time information to road users.

Pittsburgh’s adaptive traffic signal system is a great example. When Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) professor Stephen Smith installed his first few traffic signals that were experimental in a crowded area of the city’s East Liberty, he saw immediate results: drivers traveled 25 percent farther and spent 40 percent less time in traffic jams than they had before.

The system collects data from sensors which monitor the flow of traffic and altering their timings in real-time in addition to detecting pedestrians at intersections, and giving them time to safely traverse the street. Sensors then send their raw data to a central location where it’s processed by artificial intelligence and then sent back to the intersections via 5G-enabled cellular networks.

These intelligent systems also permit better, more accurate modeling of risk-minimizing scenarios that a human traffic controller could not manage – all in real-time. This is a significant step towards Vision Zero, the goal of safe road-driving where cars and human beings can share the road without collision.