What Happened?
Baton Rouge is collaborating with the tech sector to develop a transit solution to manage and mitigate the city-parish’s persistent traffic congestion concerns. The technology is based on an information-sharing platform that will help local officials and transit agencies align projects with traffic strategies and economic development.
Goal
The Baton Rouge Information Services Department has started a program that integrates the city-parish’s traffic information with an existing GPS app. The mobile platform allows government workers as well as local residents to take photos or post messages pertaining to traffic and roadway concerns throughout the community. The app also tracks individual users’ travels throughout the city, identifying areas of congestion and offering alternative routes when obstacles or road closures arise, NOLA reported.
Baton Rouge wants to develop a technology to:
- Gather all data on local roads
- Identify what the local government is doing with the roads
- Determine what type of activity is taking place on the roads
- Label roadways as closed for various events
Ideally, the platform would provide users of the mobile app with the most up-to-date traffic information and route suggestions to navigate the city seamlessly. The solution would also collect traffic data from each mobile user and incorporate it into internal department databases to assist in urban planning efforts in the future. Gaining deeper insight into traffic patterns and trends would help transit officials – as well as other departments - schedule projects more efficiently throughout the year, NOLA reported.
Elsewhere in Louisiana…
The New Orleans Public Works Department is collecting data on every block in the city using high-tech sensors, cameras, lasers, GPS and accelerometers to measure conditions on all roadways. The data collected will then be analyzed by a team of engineers to determine the state of every street and better prioritize repair and design projects moving forward, WGNO reported.
Deploying a scientific method of roadway project planning will improve efficiency and reduce costs. The city received a $500,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for the technology to assess and analyze more than 1,600 miles of local roads by this spring, WGNO reported.
Smart Transit
When cities invest in smart transportation technology, local officials and residents typically enjoy reduced congestion, lowered emissions and more efficient departmental performance. A new report predicts smart city traffic management and parking projects will reduce 164 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in cumulative global emissions between 2014 and 2019. This is the equivalent to all the emissions produced by 35 million cars each year.
By 2019, the report anticipates 700 million cars will on roadways worldwide, underscoring the high demand for technology to mitigate unnecessary traffic congestion and emissions. The research suggests sensor-networked and monitored city communications infrastructure will significantly reduce traffic congestion. Digitally monitored parking spaces and variable pricing will also help control unnecessary traffic associated with circling for spots.
Furthermore, developing smart grids throughout a cityscape will enable officials, businesses and residents to reduce energy consumption and deploy intelligent distribution automation for more efficient operations. This is perfectly exemplified with the deployment of smart street lighting that adjusts light output based on demand.
Intelligent Travels
Gov1 has reported on a variety of smart transit technology investments designed to reduce congestion and lower emissions.