Smart streets: Talking vehicles to reduce accidents, congestion in US

Picture of Park City Transit's bus 681 Wikipedia Commons

Utah transportation officials have developed a smart technology that enables vehicles to communicate with traffic lights and each other, increasing traffic flow and reducing congestion and accidents.

Techxplore reports that the first objective of the “Connect the West” initiative, backed by a $20 million federal grant, has already been met: installing radio transmitters in city buses so they can request a traffic light to hold the green a few seconds longer.

With this adjustment alone, the congestion on these “smart streets” has already shown significant improvement, and it’s only the beginning of high-tech upgrades scheduled to hit US roads very soon.

Streets in the US are getting smarter, which means safer

Vehicle-to-vehicle Everything, or V2X, is the first radio-based, connected vehicle technology ever developed or implemented.

Officials want to eliminate the need to manually send an alert or use mapping apps on cell phones because this technology has contributed to the skyrocketing numbers of accidents on the roads in recent years.

A transportation technology engineer at the Utah Department of Transportation told Techxplore that the technology would capitalize on the car as a data source, effectively extracting it.

“Maybe it braked really hard, or the windshield wipers are on, or the wheels are slipping. The car anonymously broadcasts to us that blip of data 10 times a second, giving us a constant stream of information.”

That data would then be sent to other cars and sensors in real time.

This past summer, Michigan diffused a pilot project on a stretch of 3 miles on Interstate 94. They set up sensors and cameras that weren’t designed to deliver speeding tickets but rather communicate to drivers what’s happening on the road. After all, catching a speeding vehicle doesn’t protect unsuspecting drivers from a possible collision. Information will. “Speeding vehicle: alert.”

The pilot program on city buses has already increased traffic flow

First, Utah officials had to test this state-of-the-art technology on public vehicles such as buses and snow plows. Data privacy emerged as a possible roadblock in official talks.

Focusing on updating traffic signals with “smart technology,” as they are one of the most accident-prone areas on the road, they allowed buses to ask for a traffic signal for a few extra seconds of green, and it worked.

A nearby child daycare worker noticed the difference.

“We haven’t seen traffic for a while. We have to transport our kiddos out of here, so when it’s a lot freer, it’s a lot easier to get out of the daycare,” Jenny Duenas told Techxplore.

The technology is being aggressively pushed at the federal level, encouraging the top 75 metropolitan areas “to have at least 25% of their signalized intersections equipped with it by 2028.”

Will all US streets be smart soon?

The “Connect the West” campaign intends to bring this road technology to all domestic vehicles in the state of Utah, with Colorado and Wyoming next in their sights.

With road accidents skyrocketing, the communication system will enable cars to talk with one another and their surroundings, including road hazards, weather conditions, traffic, and construction.

A U.S. Diplomat, Dan Langenkamp, spearheaded these urban planning efforts; his wife was killed by a truck on a bike, so by equipping large-scale vehicles with communication technology alone, roads will be safer for everybody, as per Techxplore.

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