Skip to main content

City of Palo Alto upgrades traffic management

The City of Palo Alto, California is to install what is said to be one of the first traffic management systems in the country to address the needs of connected vehicles. Trafficware will implement a traffic data export system using its ATMS.now 2.0 and SynchroGreen systems that will allow the city to securely disseminate real-time traffic signal data to auto manufacturers using smart vehicle technologies. The traffic signals at 100 intersections will be upgraded using Trafficware controllers, in addit
December 15, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The City of Palo Alto, California is to install what is said to be one of the first traffic management systems in the country to address the needs of connected vehicles.

5642 Trafficware will implement a traffic data export system using its ATMS.now 2.0 and SynchroGreen systems that will allow the city to securely disseminate real-time traffic signal data to auto manufacturers using smart vehicle technologies.

The traffic signals at 100 intersections will be upgraded using Trafficware controllers, in addition to the installation of the company’s ATMS.now 2.0 traffic management system. The City will also install Trafficware’s SynchroGreen adaptive traffic control system at nine intersections to update signal timings in real-time based on current traffic demand and help alleviate congestion and reduce motorist delay.

Trafficware will introduce a web-based driver information system, allowing the public to view real-time traffic conditions, video feeds and obtain current traffic data using a web browser, smart phone or tablet. The driver information system will integrate with the City’s future parking management system and includes real-time parking occupancy data in downtown Palo Alto, provided by VIMOC Technologies’ Smart Cities Platform. This open platform utilises a technology called Landscape-Computing that minimises network bandwidth consumption and latency, which is critical for accurate real-time parking data.

The project is due to begin this month and is expected to be operational by September 2015.

“As we looked for a partner for traffic management for the next decade, it became important to consider capabilities for connected vehicles,” said Jaime Rodriguez, chief transportation official for the city of Palo Alto. “Trafficware’s ATMS.now is the City’s current traffic management system, so upgrading to ATMS 2.0 was a natural choice. The City is expanding functionality of the traffic management system to meet the data sharing demands that we anticipate within our market.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • New system expedites border crossings
    October 28, 2016
    Enforcing border controls can create long queues for travellers, David Crawford looks at potential solutions. Long delays at border crossings in both North America and Europe have sparked the development of new queue visualisation and management technologies that are cutting hours, even days, off international passenger and freight journeys. At the westernmost end of the 2,019km (1,250 mile) Mexico–US frontier, two parallel crossings between Tijuana, in the former country, and the border city of San Diego,
  • Smoothing the path to reducing traffic pollution
    October 22, 2014
    David Crawford reviews a new approach to traffic smoothing. A key objective for the Californian city of Bakersfield’s upgraded traffic operations centre (TOC), which opened in June 2014, is to help improve living conditions in a region with one of the worst air quality problems in the US. The TOC is speeding up the smoothing of traffic flows by delivering faster and better-informed traffic signal retiming and synchronisation.
  • Bringing V2I and V2V communications to workzone safety
    January 26, 2012
    Imran Hayee of the University of Minnesota Duluth's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering talks about efforts to bring V2I and V2V communications into work zones. With USDOT backing and under the auspices of the ITS Joint Program Office Connected Vehicle Research (formerly IntelliDrive) research programme, M. Imran Hayee of the University of Minnesota Duluth's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering along with team of his students, have been conducting research into the application of
  • Benefits of traffic light synchronisation
    January 27, 2012
    Alicia Parkway corridor, located in Orange County, California, was part of Phase 1 of an inter-jurisdictional Traffic Light Synchronisation Programme (TLSP) in Orange County designed to increase mobility and overall drive quality while reducing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. By increasing average speeds and reducing travel times via the reduction in stops, the programme sought to reduce vehicle acceleration and deceleration events along the corridor; these have been identified as the leadin