The Regional Municipality of York, in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area, will begin using technology by Intelligent Mechatronic Systems Inc. (IMS) to monitor and ease traffic congestion starting in January.
See a live demo of IMS Traffic Intelligence for the Greater Toronto Area.
The Toronto Star reports: “Traffic jams are not getting better, but they are getting smarter, thanks to the people stuck inside them.” Using IMS Traffic Intelligence technology, drivers and pedestrians alike contribute to a live-traffic report created around the cell phone signals of everyone stuck in traffic.
Steven Kemp, Director of Traffic Management and Intelligent Transportation Systems for the Municipality of York will use this technology to sync traffic lights and plan road improvements so he can better relieve gridlock throughout the city.
“From a traffic engineer’s point of view, we’ve never had access to this level of data before,” says Kemp.
IMS Traffic Intelligence uses the pings your cell-phone makes to nearby towers to create an accurate, city-wide map of traffic patterns in the area. It’s a truly revolutionary advance in technology from the methods currently employed by the City of Toronto that includes everything from costly, on-road traffic monitoring hardware to hiring students to count cars at fixed locations.
Toronto’s York Region plans to offer a smartphone app to provide IMS’ Traffic Intelligence, real-time traffic information to drivers so they can plot out the quickest commute before getting into the car.
Kemp says the old way of monitoring traffic was labor intensive and costly, but IMS’ new live-traffic technology will truly be a “game changer” for York Region.
See a live-traffic demo of IMS Traffic Intelligence for the Greater Toronto Area.
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