As traffic congestion in cities is becoming a major problem cities are turning to smart technologies for traffic management to increase road safety and decrease wasted energy. In addition, this assists in reducing time for both drivers and passengers and reduces emissions. It also helps reduce traffic congestion.

The technology behind this is based on two principal components: Hardware and software. The former provides the subcomponent that executes, while the latter functions as the command and control center. Both are enhanced by sensors and processing techniques which include ANPR (automotive license plate recognition) that records information about vehicles’ movements and can detect traffic signals.

Depending on the method used, data can be processed on-device by smart traffic lights or sent to a cloud. The latter offers more sophisticated models and predictive analysis to reduce congestion in traffic and align public transportation schedules. This way, they can reduce average travel times by 25%, cut down signal moved here wait times by 40%, and cut down on emissions by 20% according to Carnegie Mellon University.

A well-designed traffic light system is not only able to reduce the amount of time traffic signals take to operate and improving pedestrian flow and the flow of micromobility vehicles like e-bikes or electric scooters. They’re not able to adhere to the traditional traffic law regarding preemption of signals. In London for instance crashes on e-scooters jumped by 2,800% in the first second quarter of 2021. therefore it is vital to factor them into traffic light control.