Dallas city leaders are learning about plans for new technology designed to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. It calls for sharing data from smart phones and smart vehicles . Ken Kalthoff reports.
Taylor Li, University of Texas at Arlington Assistant Civil Engineering Professor, specializes in traffic signals and advanced transportation management systems. Li said he has been communicating with the Dallas Transportation Director on this new data approach and that Dallas would be one of the first big cities to use it this way.
“Those data are very high quality and have a huge potential for future transportation systems. But the data size is exponentially growing, it’s a lot of data,” Li said.“And also, of cost. These vehicles are moving faster. They have fewer crashes. You also reduce emissions, improving air quality. We have so many things we can do in the future. We have a bright future coming to us, with this new data,” Li said.
The report to be presented to the Dallas City Council Tuesday suggests it would cost around $21 million over 5 years to install and maintain a much larger traffic management system with safeguards on the data and computer systems.The report also says Dallas needs substantial improvement in pavement markings, traffic signs and street lighting.