A German city is about to use an AI to control traffic lights. The purpose of this artificial intelligence will be to create “green corridors” for emergency vehicles, while making sure to smooth traffic in the various roads of the city.
What if the end of traffic jams in our cities lies in the use of artificial intelligence? This is the bet taken by the German town of Bad Hersfeld, located in the Land of Hesse. Indeed, the town hall intends to launch a test of an unprecedented nature soon, by allocating management of the city’s traffic lights to an AI.
Note that this idea is not new, since Cédric Villani, mathematician holder of a Fields Medal and former deputy for Essonne, had already mentioned this measure in his program during his political career. For its part, Google also announced its ambitions in October 2021 to make road traffic more fluid thanks to artificial intelligence.
The Mountain View firm has already tested this device in Israel on four major arteries in the city. The results are convincing, since fuel consumption and motorist waiting times have been reduced by between 10 and 20% on the roads concerned.
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An AI to create green corridors for ambulances
However, the German system envisaged by the city of Bad Hersfeld will take up certain concepts mentioned by Google and Cédric Villani. First, the AI will be able to regulate traffic automatically by controlling traffic lights in particular. In the eyes of the town hall, the main interest is to to be able to quickly creategreen corridors”, or routes without red lights, especially for emergency vehicles.
The stated objective is clear: to allow ambulances and firefighters to intervene in the different places of the city in less than ten minutes, despite heavy traffic. To do this, the AI in question will have access to a large number of data in real time, not to mention the dozens and dozens of surveillance cameras in the city. Otherwise, the municipality plans to deploy other sensors to help the AI in its task.
Of course, the risk with these “green corridors” is create traffic jams on other axes. Here again, the AI will have to monitor the general traffic and will be able to smooth the traffic according to the data obtained to avoid ending up in the saturation of the roads around the corridors. According to our colleagues from The Mayor site, this device (which will cost 2.8 million euros) will be tested as part of a pilot project with the city’s fire brigade. With the help of several experts, they will be responsible for analyzing the first effects of AI on traffic.