I work as a traffic commander in Shenzhen, with the responsibility to maintain order for key roads and intersections during peak hours. I am often standing outdoors even in extreme weather conditions, and am constantly breathing the exhaust fumes emitted from automobiles and trucks.
I often wonder why on-site command is necessary nowadays, considering that sensing devices such as videos, radar, geomagnetic coils, and checkpoints are widely deployed to monitor and report real-time traffic conditions.
In Shenzhen's complicated network of urban roadways, I am an isolated 'node,' unaware of the detailed traffic conditions at places away from my location. Circumstantially, I am incapable of effectively dispatching traffic or information based on traffic flows away from my immediate position. This is a situation that I share with other traffic commanders throughout the network.
When I discovered that Huawei had implemented a service to improve the traffic situation in Shenzhen, I knew that the tide would be changing for the better as the HUAWEI CLOUD Enterprise Intelligence (EI)-developed 'City-wide Traffic Brain' is an ideal solution for enabling a fully integrated traffic monitoring network across our city.
"City-wide Traffic Brain" makes it possible to learn real-time traffic conditions of your surroundings, not only an intersection. It monitors and identifies traffic volumes in traffic surveillance videos within seconds, passes traffic volume data to the big data system in real time for traffic volume analysis, and also converges data generated from checkpoints, radar, and coils to the data lake for further utilization. Furthermore, it fulfills a closed loop from sensing to decision-making and then to execution by enabling the end-to-end traffic signal control system, helping bring the age of AI to the Shenzhen traffic control and its dispatching system.
The Shenzhen City-wide Traffic Brain makes it possible to track the real-time traffic conditions across the city, intersection by intersection. Video surveillance and road sensors monitor and identify traffic volumes within seconds. The data is uploaded and ingested by a Big Data system that merges inputs generated from checkpoints, radar, and embedded coils for further utilization. The result is a closed-loop from sensing to decision-making and execution through an end-to-end traffic signal control system that employs Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Shenzhen's traffic control and dispatching systems. Thanks to "City-wide Traffic Brain", my work is more efficient than ever before.
Before the City-wide Traffic Brain, people were routinely stuck in huge traffic jams, and for which our manual dispatch protocols could not keep ahead. Even though I was there continuously adjusting the signal control period and phase time, queue overflows still occurred at intersections controlled by traffic lights. Without question, the City-wide Traffic Brain has solved the problem of queue overflows at our roadway intersections. Nowadays overloads rarely occur, even during peak hours — and my stress levels are significantly reduced. Recent statistics show that average vehicle delays have decreased by 15 to 25 percent, meaning on average that it will take 15 to 25 fewer minutes to drive through congested areas.
My experience with HUAWEI CLOUD EI is simple: AI offers more precise capabilities than manual dispatching, and HUAWEI CLOUD EI is the obvious choice for optimizing the opportunity to change the traffic light timing adaptively. The overall pattern for traffic lights at intersections is to keep the timing cycle short at the start of morning peak, adjust for longer cycles at peak hours, and go short again after peak hours.
The HUAWEI CLOUD EI is also contributing to the reduction of air pollution for Shenzhen's inner and outer cities as the decreased magnitude of peak-hour traffic jams eliminates thousands of cubic meters of automobile exhaust every day. Just imagine how many more blue skies we can enjoy, and it is all thanks to HUAWEI CLOUD EI.
Additionally, HUAWEI CLOUD EI lends a helping hand for improving services related to resolving traffic accidents, AI-assisted law enforcement, crowd density monitoring and traffic counter-measures, bus line optimization, and taxi dispatching, and will confidently be dedicated to reducing Shenzhen traffic.
Dedicated to enabling intelligent traffic management, the City-wide Traffic Brain has already made an enormous difference to the quality of our daily lives.
Thankfully, my work is well-recognized and I get the honor of being a superstar in police circles.
