Steve Rogerson talks with experts from Digi about how traffic management is changing the way cities work.

One constant of my life so far is that nothing is ever constant. My six-plus decades have seen technology changes that have gone well beyond what even some of the best science-fiction writers could have imagined. Having a job writing about this means work is never boring.

In that I am lucky, but I also realise it is time to strap myself in because I have a feeling the changes so far have been just the queue for the roller-coaster that we are about to board. Why? Let me explain.

When the idea of the IoT came around, it looked good that everything could now be connected and monitored. It also meant the amount of data being produced was quickly becoming unmanageable and was holding back the growth of the IoT. Thankfully, a separate development was seeing AI moving from a nice idea to something that was serious and, this is the important bit, extremely powerful. Suddenly, we had a way to deal with all those data being produced by IoT devices.

This is what has pushed the lever for the roller-coaster to begin, and I was reminded of that last week during a chat with two guys from Digi (www.digi.com) – senior product manager David Rush and vice president Selim Albardak. We were talking specifically about smart city applications, or more precisely managing traffic within smart cities.

They told me a lot about projects that are in the pipeline or operating. New York, for example, has thousands of intersections they are trying to monitor in real time and adjust traffic signals to reduce congestion or make it easier for emergency vehicles to reach their destination. Stockholm is also doing that. Pittsburgh is trying to reduce wait times at traffic lights. San Francisco is experimenting with dynamic parking.

But this is not for every city. There is a cost-to-benefit ratio. “In large cities, it makes sense,” said David. “In rural areas with two traffic lights, it makes no sense.”

So why are we now seeing these roll outs of traffic management technology around the world?. As I mentioned, it was a case of having all the pieces in place at the right time.

“When the IoT was first introduced, it was a bit too soon,” said Selim. “But if you look at the advances in AI, that is what is impacting these decisions now.”

And this intelligence is not just in the servers but at the edge so decisions can be made quickly and even when connectivity is down.

“We are seeing the large metropolises deploying it,” said Selim.

They are also using it for people counting, so if they see a sudden increase in people at a certain spot, they can check what is going on. Has there been an accident? Is there a protest? On traffic, they can spot if a vehicle hasn’t moved for a while. Has it broken down? It can spot debris in the road. All these can then lead to fast deployment of humans. Remember us? We live in the cities. So a police officer could be sent to check why a crowd was gathering. Sanitation officials could go to remove rubbish blocking the road. All a lot more quickly than we see today.

As David reminded me, councils used to put wires across the street that would count the cars crossing and you’d get the data once every six months or even longer. Now, you get this in real time and AI can be used to adjust traffic lights and priorities on the fly.

“In the past two to three years, machine-learning and AI use has exploded,” said David. “Once you can gather data in real time, machine learning and AI can use them. Ten years ago, this was all manual. Now it is becoming automated and will get more automated.”

Selim added: “If you look at what is happening in AI and where we are heading, the future is both scary and exciting at the same time. Humans will always be required but there will be changes and certain things that will be automated.”

The use now of robots and drones for in-city deliveries is a good example. This will increase. Self-driving cars and automated public transport will change how people travel through cities.

Last month, for example, David had his first fully autonomous Waymo drive. “For the first minute, this was the most novel thing I had done,” he said. “But if every car was autonomous, this would be much more efficient. But we still have to deal with human drivers and the unpredictability that brings is huge.”

That, he believes will change as more cars, at least within cities, become autonomous. But that is just the start. As Selim said: “The next ten years will be when it all changes. What we can achieve will be limitless. It will be interesting and exciting to see the way this plays out.”

Time to get on that roller-coaster.