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What is a Smart City?

A Smart City is a term that suggests the effective use of resources in a city in a systematic way with the help of Internet of Things, and other growing technologies. The term “Smart City” is nothing but merely a concept that is yet to have a precise and rigid definition, but my given definition suffices the concept and its open-endedness gives the term the luxury to grow broader from within, allowing it to develop even further.

The collection of endless piling data, and converting that data into useful legible information, and then using this information to observe patterns and regularities to improve the conditions of an urban city, is the primary notion that makes a city “smart” and effective. The improvement of conditions can consist of almost every functionality in a city, be it- the economic growth, the quality of life, healthcare, pollution, sanitation, or as is my topic- Traffic and Congestion.

Traffic Congestion in a Smart City

The world is growing at a fast pace. The ever-over-growing population and the need for the growing population to keep up with the pace of the world is grandiose. More and more people are moving towards for a better life, as they should, and the first step for a better life in usual terms is for people to live in a city. This has led to a mass urbanization in today’s world. As we learned in class, to contain and satiate the need of the massive urbanization, USA, for example, would need to create a city the size of Chicago, every two years. And this doesn’t even stop at the infrastructure aspect of it. There needs to be more jobs, more people, a balance for all job and income group categories, etc.

Since more and more people are moving towards an urban life, it has led cities to become more densely populated and has led to more traffic congestion. To solve this problem of traffic congestion, the use of Internet of Things, big data analysis, and other growing technologies has been important, and the implementing of these steps into the said urban cities is what makes the city a Smart City. Surprisingly, it’s not always the technology that solves the problem, although its use is of vital importance. As I have discussed further in my blog, the use of unconventional methods and implementing those methods to improve the traffic congestion in a city, without creating additional problems, has led to some commendable changes which has relaxed the congestion significantly. Some of these solutions are as simple as promoting public transportation, and others are as extreme as banning certain vehicles on the roads.

Innovative Solutions to Traffic Congestion

New Delhi, India

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The National Capital Region of Delhi, which includes the main city of New Delhi and the suburbs of multiple areas, has a combined population estimate of 28 million people. The number of registered vehicles in the city is recorded to be more than 16 million in number. This estimate was last updated in the year 2014, which is still higher than anywhere else in the world in 2019. The densely populated area combined with the growing number of vehicles has made Delhi as one of the most congested cities in the world. A government study concluded that Delhi loses more than 420 million man-hours every month in people commuting from home to work due to the traffic congestion.

To battle against the rising traffic congestion and the growing air pollution in the city of Delhi, the city government came out with an unconventional idea that was called ‘the odd-even rule’. Under this rule, all the non-transport four wheeled vehicles with  registration numbers ending with an odd digit(1,3,5,7,9) were allowed on the roads only on odd calendar dates and similarly, vehicles with registration numbers ending with even number(0,2,4,6,8) were allowed on the roads only on even calendar dates. Initially, this rule was implemented from 8 am to 8 pm, to regulate traffic congestion during the busy hours.

To accommodate the people who were not allowed to drive their vehicles on a particular day, they were subsidized with cheaper public transportation costs, which was already being promoted in the first place. The faulty citizens were penalized with hefty fines and a regular faulty pattern would revoke their driving license.

Not only did this rule encourage better traffic conditions, but it also promoted better environmental conditions, and gave an incentive to the affected people with cheaper costs and a faster commute to their destinations.

Although this rule was highly controversial initially, it did improve the pollution and traffic congestion situation to some extent in the city of New Delhi. This initiative was beneficial for the community as a whole but the selfish individual humane idiosyncrasies resulted in people not meeting the same eye. For example – unlike in the USA, getting a car in India is a symbol of luxury, a token of aspiration which defines a person’s success; by implementing the odd even rule, the government took this privilege which made people question their social rights.  Another example is of how there are hundreds of thousands of taxi driver in this major city, and how theoretically, half of them would not be able to drive their vehicles on half the days. These are people who work from paycheck to paycheck, and the sudden change in the traffic and driving rules made it harder for them to live their usual lives.

To cover for the affected people who would be unable to use their vehicles on some dates, the government increased the number of public transportations exponentially, helping people commute to their destinations easily.

In my opinion, the rule was too extreme and too sudden a change for a major city like New Delhi, but its positive results make the phrase “extreme conditions call for extreme measures” apt. Some things I really liked about the rule was how it was focused on reducing traffic congestion and helping the environmental cause at the same time. This initiative put the city a step closer to be a Smart City.

To make the traffic congestion even smoother and make the city of New Delhi smarter, I’d have implemented further changes and measures. For example, in today’s age most people have smart-phones, enabled with GPS and Wi-Fi services. Using the positioning of an individual and combining it to others’ GPS location, one can determine the flow of traffic and the congestion with it. Using this data by monitoring it, one can learn the patterns of how the traffic is moving in a certain part of the city. Using the results of this data, one can know the traffic flow, the wait times and thus control the traffic signals – thereby helping the traffic move freely and smoothly. This would not only reduce the congestion but also accommodate different dynamic situations that might hinder the flow of traffic, for example- an accident.

Using this technology hand in hand with the odd even rule would make the traffic conditions in New Delhi better- saving time, energy, resources, and even possibly make some room for further urbanization.

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Mecca, being the most holy place for Muslims, sees an influx of about 2.5 million pilgrims every year (as of 2017). On top of this massive sum of tourists, the locals visit the holy place almost five times a day for the daily prayer. To accommodate hundreds of thousands of people going to the same place at almost the same time, the need for a good traffic control system is quintessential.  To do that, the government of Saudi Arabia hired an outside consulting firm to create an effective solution with them.

The solution entailed the building of a technological infrastructure within the existing one to adjust the traffic and control it in a more effective way. This building of the infrastructure would consist of assembling physical cameras and monitoring devices to monitor the traffic and learn from the data provided by the monitoring. The speed of the cars, the speed of the flow of the traffic, the number of cars, the occurrence of any accidents, etc., would all be recorded by the semi-autonomous computers which would compute the data. The computed data would then be used to control the signal-waiting time, lane prioritizing, etc. And all of this would be automated, which would be fast, efficient, and in a carefree way.

With the use of this technology, the traffic patterns in Mecca became more controlled, and it smoothened the congestion to make it easier for people to commute. The algorithm used in the technology is so copious that it allows pedestrians more crossing time at the time of prayers, under the assumption that the pedestrians are going to the mosque. Moreover, the third generation of traffic signaling control is featured with fully adaptive and dynamic decision making. The traffic signaling schemes are modified according to the real time traffic situation around an intersection, so as to allow more time for one way traffic to pass, if the number of vehicles are more for the way, and it is to effect further traffic conditions.

Another practical way the technology is being used is that it gives preference to ambulances, school buses, and public transports, with almost no red lights to face for them, unlike other vehicles. This is another way to promote the increase in the usage of public transports, so as to reduce the number of vehicles on the road, reducing congestion, and allowing more pilgrims and other travelers to travel faster to the destination.

These technology components and systems are microprocessor based and operate on algorithms that is developing as more data is fed to it. This gives the city the benefit to modify the traffic light controlling patterns which would allow strategies with aim to provide automated regulation of traffic by dealing with special conditions in a smart way. The system would just count the number of vehicles and their speeds, which would be fed to a backend server to conjecture and provide different alternatives for setting red or green light duration via a traffic light control interface to resolve the traffic congestion problem.

Another factor of technology from where the data of the traffic is gathered is from the monitoring of the GPS devices in a region. The technology basically uses the same technology as Google Maps or Apple Maps in what they do to calculate if a road is congested ahead, or traffic forecasting. This allows the computer to factor in delays and prioritize some roads before other in order to make the congestion better. In my opinion, using this technology solution has been and would be helpful for the traffic congestions in Mecca. The process has been proven and is easy to implement, which would make it even a smarter solution for a smart city. If I were to do anything differently in providing the solution for the traffic congestion in Mecca, I’d offer the brining of electronic vehicles as the public transport. Surely, Saudi Arabia is rich on oil, which would deem electric vehicles senseless, but it would certainly be good for the atmosphere and the environment. Other than that, I believe that the idea used to control the traffic in Saudi Arabia is good and efficient for the particular city.

Las Vegas, U.S.A

Facts state that over the last 40 years, the population of Las Vegas has increased exponentially. It has more than 2.5 million residents according to the reports in 2019.  With increasing population and increasing number of tourists, traffic congestion is one of the major problems in the Sin City.

Most of the tourists don’t know their way around Vegas and unintentionally make the traffic slow while working their way around using GPS systems. One more reason for traffic congestion in Vegas is the unnecessary construction of roads every now and then. Nevada gets federal dollars annually for the maintenance of roads. If that money isn’t redeemed, the state loses that money completely. Hence, the roads are re-paved every 2 years unnecessarily. While this construction takes place, the traffic on these roads in diverted to another one which makes the traffic slower.

Constant road construction, long wait times in traffic, increasing number of vehicles on road leading to more emission of the greenhouse gases: these problems cannot be ignored. They The government initiated some intelligent solutions to overcome these problems.

Before discussing the solutions implemented in Vegas, let’s get acquainted with a few terms:

1. V2V technology : Vehicle to Vehicle communication is mostly a wireless network where automobiles can communicate with each other and share information about the speed and position of surrounding vehicles to avoid crashes and relieve traffic congestion. It is usually a software that needs to be installed in the vehicles and is mostly short ranged where vehicles can communicate only to the vehicles which are within a range of a few meters. Recently launched automobiles have this software installed inherently.

• V2I technology : Vehicle to Infrastructure technology is a framework that allows several vehicles to communicate to different devices that are all connected to the transport system of a particular city. It is usually used to capture data and inform the drivers with real-time news about the traffic and road conditions in different parts of the city. This data can be used to modify the signal timings thus ensuring better flow of traffic.

It is claimed that installing V2V and V2I technologies can reduce the chance of accidents by 80% and ensure a much better traffic flow.

With a motive to make the city smarter and lessen the traffic congestion, the government deployed the above-mentioned technology in Vegas. They installed sensors at about 2300 intersections in the city that provided information to the traffic control system directly where the engineers can change traffic-signal timing and analyze the trends in real time.

In addition, the drivers who have the software installed in their system can know when the next signal is going to turn green as the vehicle approaches there. This idea can be upgraded to the auto-driving cars as well. Those automobiles will have access to real time data which can help them determine when to stop or slow down.

These solutions have brought a positive change in the traffic congestion in Vegas. With 2.5 million residents and 42 million annual visitors (and growing) – it’s important to keep on implementing advanced technological ideas to reduce the number of vehicles on road. HOV lanes can be a good answer to traffic congestion in Vegas. HOV(High Occupancy Vehicles) Lane is specifically for the automobiles that have more than one passenger including carpools, and public buses. These lanes would allow people to travel faster and avoid congestion during busy hours.

References

S. Misbahuddin (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7395434

J. Zubairi (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7395434

Mohanty (n.d.) Smart Cities, Retrieved from https://iu.instructure.com/courses/1859872/files

Embracing transportation solutions will ease Las Vegas’ growing pains. (2019, July 22). Retrieved from https://lasvegassun.com/news/2019/jul/22/embracing-transportation-solutions-will-ease-las-v/

Las Vegas and Acyclica to deploy V2I Smart City technology to make its streets safer. (2018, April 3). Retrieved from https://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/news/smart-cities/las-vegas-and-acyclica-to-deploy-v2i-smart-city-technology-to-make-its-streets-safer.html