North Carolina Construction News staff writer
The City of Raleigh transportation and IT departments’ Raleigh “traffic goSmart” project was recognized with an award at the IDC Government Insights’ sixth annual Smart Cities North America Awards (SCNAA).
The awards recognize progress North American states and municipalities have made in smart cities projects, and create a forum for sharing best practices.
“We are proud of the recognition for the City of Raleigh teams’ innovative use of cutting-edge technology and collaboration between transportation and information technology to improve the safety of the community we serve,” said City of Raleigh CIO Mark Wittenberg. “The goSmart project demonstrates what is possible when partnerships intersect between departments to solve real-world challenges.”
The pilot project in Raleigh is a collaboration with the goal of using data collected from intersections within the city to enhance traffic planning initiatives. Leveraging deep-learning computer vision models on traffic camera feeds, creates a better understanding of turning movements, vehicle trajectories, and overall traffic patterns.
Vehicle trajectories are then converted into GIS features, which can be visualized in real-time within the GIS system, enabling geographical analysis alongside other enterprise GIS data. The data, including turning movement counts, is crucial for various traffic analysis activities such as assessing real-time congestion and queueing, optimizing traffic signal timing, identifying traffic anomalies, and supporting roadway design projects.
“Our team came together drawing from our individual strengths to demonstrate these cutting-edge AI and machine learning technologies,” said IT technology supervisor who worked on the project Chad Foley. “These technologies are readily available but making them usable so that they add value in solving real world problems is a team effort as well as a labor of love.
“We enjoy working on this project and look forward to scaling it up as this is just the beginning of what is possible. We’re working to build a reusable platform that will support concepts and solutions for a wide range of ideas including and beyond this transportation example.”
Winners will be honored at Smart Cities Connect May 16-18, 2023, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, CO. To learn more about the event,
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