Skip to main content

Xerox researchers take to the streets to take the pain out of congestion

In the US, Xerox researchers have taken to the streets in a bid to reduce traffic congestion. They’re using expertise in data analytics, control systems, sensing, imaging and video to create new transportation applications that help reduce congestion, increase safety on the road and take the pain out of finding a parking spot.
October 23, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
In the US, Xerox researchers have taken to the streets in a bid to reduce traffic congestion. They’re using expertise in data analytics, control systems, sensing, imaging and video to create new transportation applications that help reduce congestion, increase safety on the road and take the pain out of finding a parking spot.

 “Today you can find our scientists and ethnographic researchers standing on bridges and roads or camping out in city parking lots collecting data and observing driver behaviours,” said Sophie Vandebroek, 4186 Xerox’s chief technology officer and president of the Xerox Innovation Group. “Our expertise in imaging and human behaviour is now being applied to new areas such as analysing real-time data, including video of traffic and parking patterns, to help improve traffic safety, increase driver satisfaction, simplify a municipality’s infrastructure or make cities greener by decreasing traffic-related pollution.”

Xerox technology clearing the way for smoother travel includes: imaging technology for high occupancy toll (HOT and high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes; automatic licence plate recognition (ALPR); smart urban parking services, parking demand management services and public transportation systems.

 “Adding intelligence to systems is how government and transportation agencies around the world can do more for less,” said Cees de Wijs, Xerox group president for International Transportation and Government. “At Xerox we are focusing our innovation to simplify the complexities of modern integrated transport, resulting in greater convenience, reliability and savings for users and governments and transportation agencies.” De Wijs is speaking on the topic this week at the 19th 6456 ITS World Congress on in Vienna, Austria.

Related Content

  • August 15, 2012
    Getting more for less from traffic data
    Collection of traffic and transit data has grown significantly, combining with advances in connectivity and computational modelling to good effect. Desire to do more with less – to make budgets go further – has helped create a boom in the collection and study of traffic and transport data. Studies are becoming longer, greater in number and further in-depth as more intelligence is sought, plus, transportation agencies are looking to make processes of data collection less costly, or more efficient.
  • March 30, 2012
    Xerox to help revolutionise parking at Geneva airport
    Xerox has won a contract to replace Geneva Airport’s entire parking management system for its 20 parking lots featuring more than 7,000 spaces, including walk-up pay stations, parking guidance and a global monitoring and management system which will connect with the rest of the airport’s computer systems. As part of a ten-year contract, travellers will be also able to receive information about flight delays, gate changes or customised information when they arrive at the airport parking lot.
  • December 17, 2013
    New CEO for Swarco
    Austrian-based traffic technology group Swarco has appointed Cees de Wijs as its new Chief Executive Officer. De Wijs, who has almost 20 years of experience in traffic and transport telematics across all transport modes, will take up his new position on 1 January. De Wijs, aged 45, is a Dutch national and holds a PhD degree in engineering from Delft University of Technology. He previously worked for Royal KPN Group and Logica where he was transport and logistics group director, responsible for the comp
  • July 31, 2015
    Xerox passenger detection system solves HOV and HOT enforcement challenge
    High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes are powerful ITS tools. However, the challenge of how to enforce them is proving a constant barrier. Manual enforcement is both expensive (dedicated police resource) and inefficient (poor detection rates). Xerox estimates that the ability to identify violators in the HOV/ HOT lanes by use of human eyesight is less than 20%.