The project launched in 2012 along a single-street corridor outfitted with nine Surtrac-equipped intersections in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood. That allows traffic throughout the system to be managed in real time based on the volume that’s actually there, not the volume that’s only predicted to be there. A Surtrac-equipped intersection then distributes the timing and vehicle information it collects to other nearby “smart” intersections, which can use that information, along with their own data, to adjust their own signals. Surtrac’s sensors identify approaching vehicles, calculate their speed and trajectory, and adjust a traffic signal’s timing schedule as needed. Spun out of a project led by Carnegie Mellon Institute researcher and Rapid Flow co-founder Stephen Smith, Surtrac uses a decentralized network of smart traffic lights equipped with radar, cameras, and other sensors to manage traffic flows. The answer to both problems could be AI - at least according to the team at Rapid Flow, the company behind Surtrac, an AI-based adaptive traffic management system. Traffic jams can also make it harder for first responders to reach an emergency, putting lives at risk. Idling cars are a major source of greenhouse emissions, generating an estimated 30 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, according to the U.S. They typically don’t accommodate pedestrians and cyclists, for instance, and inclement weather can interfere with their sensors.īuilding a smarter traffic light could bring benefits that go well beyond driver convenience. “You’re not really going to look at the bigger picture.” A small number of traffic lights are connected to cameras, radar systems or sensors below the road, any of which can detect cars and trigger a light to turn from red to green. “Some of the old systems are still using outdated algorithms that use local knowledge,” says Stevanovic. Instead, the majority of traffic lights work on simple timers, programmed based on estimates of traffic flows at given times of the day. Today, despite Silicon Valley’s quest to put AI in all the things, only three percent of all traffic lights in the United States are considered “smart,” according to Aleksandar Stevanovic, director of the Laboratory for Adaptive Traffic Operations & Management at Florida Atlantic University. The modern three-signal traffic light was created in 1920 by Detroit police officer William Potts, and the basic idea hasn’t changed much since then.