Intelligent traffic management: helping vehicles to flow through an ancient city

Intelligent traffic management: helping vehicles to flow through an ancient city


Traffic continues to grow in every major city. But how do you beat congestion in these restricted urban spaces? In China’s ancient-walled city of Xi’an, they’re adopting an intelligent traffic management system based on Hikvision technology – and boosting traffic flow while reducing journey time. 


The Chinese city of Xi'an, known as Chang'an in ancient times, was the center of ancient oriental civilization. Thirteen dynasties spanning Chinese history have chosen Xi'an as their capital. Today, Xi'an is not simply a part of history: it’s a high tech hub, renowned across China for its scientific research and education, manufacturing, technology, and transportation. 


The challenge: allowing a city to grow and flow within ancient walls

In spite of being a modern hub, Xi’an still retains its ‘checkerboard’ layout from the Tang Dynasty, complete with its border of tall and ancient walls. Nevertheless, while economic growth has enabled the city to develop, the walls place great restrictions on the city’s daily movement – especially to its burgeoning traffic. Vehicles can only enter and exit through the city gates, but with some three million vehicles in the city, the limited number of entrances was beginning to cause serious congestion. 


What’s more, there are also many ancient ruins in the city, which were further limiting the development of the urban area. Plus as of 2018, the city was home to over 10 million people, while the number of construction projects was steadily increasing. 


Managing a growing city while protecting its history presented a serious challenge to Xi’an. So to address this, Xi’an Urban Traffic Administration turned to Hikvision and its intelligent cameras. 



The Solution: an intelligent traffic management system from Hikvision

“Xi’an’s city walls make it impossible to increase the size of the urban area. So it was only through technology that we could allow the modern city to grow and develop,” says Lihu Ma, the Project Manager from Hikvision. “A core part of the Hikvision solution involves our AI-powered video technology.” 




The technical solution



1. Comprehensive road traffic violation monitoring



These full view ultra-high zoom cameras record vehicles making illegal maneuvers – such as running red lights, making banned turns and illegal lane changes – in real time. What’s more, the latest sonar monitoring equipment is being used to detect illegal use of car horns in banned areas.


2. Visual integrated command and dispatching platform

Using real-time video streams from Hikvision Traffic Flow Capture Cameras, a number of road condition perception technologies, plus intelligent mobile applications, Xi'an traffic police has created a visual command and control center, coupled with an intelligent police dispatch system. 


All data is aggregated and dynamically displayed on a large screen in the command and control center. In the event of a traffic incident, the system generates dispatch recommendations intelligently, according to the location and distribution of traffic police officers throughout the city. Those closest to an incident receive an automated message to their mobile terminals, enabling them to arrive at the scene quickly. 



[Visualized Command and Dispatch System]




3. Improved vehicle flow capacity with intelligent signal control



Using Hikvision intelligent video cameras coupled with augmented reality (AR) technology, the intelligent traffic management system analyzes traffic flow data and dynamically alters the timing of signal lights accordingly. It will monitor traffic flow, queue length and average driving speed in all directions of intersections in real-time, automatically adjusting signal timing to optimize the flow of vehicles. 



[Augmented Reality for Informed Traffic Management]


Benefits: Traffic throughput up by 10%, journey time down by 12%





What’s more, driver behavior is improving, and drivers are becoming more compliant with the rules of the road. Traffic law enforcement data reveals that traffic offences are generally decreasing, with traffic violations dropping by some 30% in one short-term observation. 


Additionally, thanks to the proactive traffic incident warning function, the incident detection rate has also increased by more than 30% compared to the traditional model. With the continuous optimization of the system algorithm, plus ongoing installation of monitoring equipment, the accuracy of this identification will only improve. 





You can find out more about Hikvision’s intelligent traffic solution


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