The INRIX’s 2017 Traffic Scorecard reports that traffic congestion has costed the United States, UK and Germany a combined total of $461 billion in 2017. And as more people move to large cities, the issue of traffic congestion will only increase if the current traffic management systems are not optimized.
Currently, we are watching the auto industry make huge advancements in development from Tesla’s Autopilot to Cadillac’s Escalade and with L2 vehicles becoming more commonplace it does make the current, somewhat archaic traffic system seem quite outdated. The traffic system used today by most cities and counties was developed nearly 100 years ago so it makes sense that it has not tackled the traffic congestion problem that exists now, especially when vehicles have evolved in leaps and bounds in the last century.
Today city managers that order from Amazon Prime, use iPhones, and are using technology in every aspect of their personal lives are eager to update and bring a more advanced, artificial intelligence-based traffic management system to intersections. The advantages are enormous with aims to increase traffic flow, decrease congestion, save money, and reduce CO emissions.
Autonomous traffic management systems are automating the entire manual traffic management processes. The system enables cities, for the first time, to implement their traffic policies in a seamless way and operate autonomously in order to maximize traffic flow, and implement those policies at the street level. Autonomous traffic management systems are not constrained by the traditional traffic management methodology such as timing plans, offsets etc. and can respond to constantly changing environments on the roads in real-time in order to increase traffic flow.
