Page 26 - Security Today, September/October 2022

An Emergency Voice
Three technology solutions and how they drive other improvement in city living
By Kevin Taylor
One of the biggest draw- backs to living and work- ing in modern cities is traffic congestion. It frustrates motorists. It in- creases the probability of accidents. It can slow response time for emergency services. And, it lowers air quality.
On its face, congestion is a nuisance and a time-drain. It is also a safety issue. Many traffic accidents occur in congested areas. If a city can reduce congestion, it can re- duce transit-related accidents resulting in severe injuries and fatalities and come closer to achieving its Vision Zero goal.*
There are, however, other benefits to re- ducing congestion that have to do with emer- gency response services. If a city can reduce the number of accidents occurring on its roads, it naturally follows that they can also reduce the number of emergency dispatches to those types of events. This frees up ambu- lances, firefighters and police to commit their limited resources to other non-traffic-related emergencies throughout the city.
An additional benefit has to do with en- vironmental impact. Vehicles rank as one
of the two largest sources of urban green- house gas emissions, the other being power generation and distribution for heating and cooling systems in buildings. Reducing congestion reduces the length of time vehi- cles stay on the road. This, in turn, reduces fuel consumption and emissions, which im- proves air quality and brings the city a step closer to carbon neutrality.
THREE TRAFFIC CHALLENGES: THREE ARCHITECTED SOLUTIONS There are many ways to leverage technol- ogy to minimize traffic congestion. Three of the most popular approaches are traffic signal management, parking space moni- toring and safe roadway design.
Traffic signal management technology focuses on dynamic change to use traffic data in real time to change the phase and timing of traffic lights to reduce motorist wait times. Parking space monitoring tech- nology focuses on tracking available spots roadside, in surface lots and in garages, and then communicating that information to motorists in real time so they do not keep circling the block, wasting gas, and slowing
traffic as they search for an open spot.
Safe roadway design is possible through automated collection of data that informs city planners and traffic engineers how people, products and vehicles move through the public right-of-way, and by
detecting “near-miss” events.
IMPROVING INTERSECTION
FLOW THROUGH
Historically, transportation departments programmed their traffic signals based on studies conducted by third-party consult- ing firms. These studies are expensive and time-consuming to produce, leaving most signal-controlled intersections to go sev- eral years between updates. Unfortunately, operating signals on pre-programmed fixed intervals that reflected outdated traffic pat- terns often finds motorists waiting in long queues at an intersection even when there are no cars coming the other way.
Shifting to dynamic signal control based on real-time data helps alleviate this issue by using sensors and analytics to detect and quantitatively measure the number of vehicles at the intersection and
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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 | SECURITY TODAY
CITY SURVEILLANCE
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