Urban congestion is a pressing challenge, driving up emissions and compromising transport efficiency. Advances in big-data collection and processing now enable adaptive traffic signals, offering a promising strategy for congestion mitigation. In our study of China’s 100 most congested cities, big-data empowered adaptive traffic signals reduced peak-hour trip times by 11% and off-peak by 8%, yielding an estimated annual CO₂ reduction of 31.73 million tonnes. Despite an annual implementation cost of US$1.48 billion, societal benefits—including CO₂ reduction, time savings, and fuel efficiency—amount to US$31.82 billion. Widespread adoption will require enhanced data collection and processing systems, underscoring the need for policy and technological development. Our findings highlight the transformative potential of big-data-driven adaptive systems to alleviate congestion and promote urban sustainability. Big-data empowered traffic signal control in China can reduce vehicle trip times, creating potential reduction of 31.73 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2 emissions annually and US$31.8 billion benefits per year.
It‘s even worse. You need mass surveillance and strip away human rights to do it the way China does it. And I am sorry, but that‘s not worth it. There are countless better ways to deal with climate change because in the end of the day it‘s still a self serving mission for the most part.
Your bad faith argument aside, they absolutely do use technology that violates human rights and integrate it in this system. Think about why smart cities are controversial and amp it up to 11. That‘s China managing their population. Point systems that prevent you from air travel or entering other provinces because you dared criticize the almighty government do violate the basic human right of free speech and control traffic at the same time.
Point systems that prevent you from air travel or entering other provinces because you dared criticize the almighty government
That’s… just not real… Your understanding of Chinese policy comes from curated western sources with vested interests in putting a dystopian and totalitarian understanding of China and its government in our countries’ people (we’re both westerners). There are systems in place to prevent certain convicted criminals from freely moving around there country, but that has little to do with criticising the party.
Regardless, big data on traffic doesn’t imply knowledge about the particular vehicles and drivers inside said vehicles. You’re just going ahead and assuming “dystopian control of people” because it’s China.
No they aren’t. They’re saying smarter traffic systems are an improvement over what we have now. I’ve looked in the article and nowhere do they say cars aren’t a problem, or that emissions is down to traffic lights not cars.
I see so many examples on here and on Reddit of people letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Whether we like it or not, cars will be around for a while. It makes no sense to put zero effort into improving efficiency in the meantime. You don’t have to be so all-or-nothing.
And next year the congestion will be the same as before, except with even more cars and even more emissions.
This is equivalent to building another lane on a highway to increase throughput and decrease traffic jams. In the beginning, emissions will be reduced since traffic jams occur less frequently. And then, through induced demand, there’s congestion again.
Improving car throughput directly leads to increased emissions with a small delay.
From the paper:
Increased speeds from adaptive signals may induce additional travel, as people opt to drive more or travel farther, potentially offsetting some congestion benefits. Our models do not fully capture induced demand due to data limitations, but adaptive signaling generally supports higher traffic volumes and smoother flows.
Yes, and such intelligent systems can also optimize for pedestrian traffic, reducing the time waiting for a walk light, monitor bike lane usage, track dangerous intersections, improve emergency response times, prioritize buses and trams, etc. It’s good for people to be gathering this data and trying to make things better.
They will truly do anything not to admit the problem is cars
It‘s even worse. You need mass surveillance and strip away human rights to do it the way China does it. And I am sorry, but that‘s not worth it. There are countless better ways to deal with climate change because in the end of the day it‘s still a self serving mission for the most part.
Your take is that changing traffic management is a violation of human rights?
Your bad faith argument aside, they absolutely do use technology that violates human rights and integrate it in this system. Think about why smart cities are controversial and amp it up to 11. That‘s China managing their population. Point systems that prevent you from air travel or entering other provinces because you dared criticize the almighty government do violate the basic human right of free speech and control traffic at the same time.
That’s… just not real… Your understanding of Chinese policy comes from curated western sources with vested interests in putting a dystopian and totalitarian understanding of China and its government in our countries’ people (we’re both westerners). There are systems in place to prevent certain convicted criminals from freely moving around there country, but that has little to do with criticising the party.
Regardless, big data on traffic doesn’t imply knowledge about the particular vehicles and drivers inside said vehicles. You’re just going ahead and assuming “dystopian control of people” because it’s China.
Exactly all this does is create more road capacity which will inevitably lead to more cars and then increased congestion.
This is the big data equivalent of “one more lane”.
China has more public transit of every type than the rest of the world combined at this point, and most of their cities are quite pedestrian centric.
Cars are a luxury outside the rural areas, and they’re a problem, but this is unrelated to that.
No they aren’t. They’re saying smarter traffic systems are an improvement over what we have now. I’ve looked in the article and nowhere do they say cars aren’t a problem, or that emissions is down to traffic lights not cars.
I see so many examples on here and on Reddit of people letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Whether we like it or not, cars will be around for a while. It makes no sense to put zero effort into improving efficiency in the meantime. You don’t have to be so all-or-nothing.
And next year the congestion will be the same as before, except with even more cars and even more emissions.
This is equivalent to building another lane on a highway to increase throughput and decrease traffic jams. In the beginning, emissions will be reduced since traffic jams occur less frequently. And then, through induced demand, there’s congestion again.
Improving car throughput directly leads to increased emissions with a small delay.
From the paper:
Yes, and such intelligent systems can also optimize for pedestrian traffic, reducing the time waiting for a walk light, monitor bike lane usage, track dangerous intersections, improve emergency response times, prioritize buses and trams, etc. It’s good for people to be gathering this data and trying to make things better.
In the US, these types of “intelligent” systems almost always degrade pedestrian traffic quite severely.