Smart Traffic Signals by CMU Could Ease City Travel Time

Thanks to the talented folks at CMU, getting to our Squirrel Hill office may be a cinch in the future, whether by car or by bus. This new technology is only in East Liberty for now, but we're hoping it will eventually it will spread to the rest of the city as well!

A unique partnership has piloted a new adaptive traffic signal control technology — smart traffic signals — that promises to dramatically reduce harmful vehicle emissions and frustratingly long travel times through urban neighborhoods.

With funding support from three Pittsburgh foundations, Carnegie Mellon University has worked with the City of Pittsburgh and East Liberty Development Inc. to deploy the technology for a network of traffic lights serving the busy East Liberty area of the city.
    
"The reductions of 40 percent in vehicle wait time, nearly 26 percent in travel time and 21 percent in projected vehicle emissions realized in this pilot are remarkable," said CMU President Jared L. Cohon. "I'm proud of CMU's team, which developed this first-in-the-world technology, and am equally proud of the partnership approach typical of Pittsburgh that made this pilot possible."

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl cheered the pilot's success as "a breakthrough in making our city's traffic system work far more efficiently without having to resort to expensive widening roads, eliminating street parking, or re-routing. It makes the city more attractive to employers and residents alike."

Stephen Smith, director of the Intelligent Coordination and Logistics Laboratory in CMU's Robotics Institute, tackled the difficult challenge of perennially congested road networks in urban centers.

Combining concepts from the fields of artificial intelligence and traffic theory, his team first developed technology to allow traffic signals to communicate with one another and collaboratively adapt to actual traffic conditions in real time. The second step was to establish proof of the concept using a simulation model of Pittsburgh city traffic.

The latest step has been the pilot project that has successfully demonstrated traffic signals have the ability to react to quickly changing conditions, reducing traffic congestion and the resulting extra vehicle emissions. The next step will be to expand the pilot to demonstrate the technology on a bigger scale.

Read the full article here.