Proposed Smart Traffic System for Perth

Dr George Christos

I have had this idea for awhile, but I believe the time is now right to start to develop a smart traffic control system for Perth.

Originally I had in mind sensors in cars to tell approaching traffic lights who was approaching and how many vehicles were coming from various directions, but why not start planning for the future and have a global smart traffic control system for all of Perth.

This is what I have in mind.

Every car is to be fitted with a GPS transmitter (and receiver if we want to go even further into the future and allow system to vehicle communications) whose whereabouts and velocity are stored and undated on a large government server.

The server will then have a continuous snap-shot view of where all vehicles are and how fast they are going and their directions.

It is preferred that each car has its own unique signature as well (thinking ahead again) but to start with this is not necessary. With a unique signature one could keep special track of where vehicles like trucks busses etc are, and even tap into the whereabout of any vehicle for forsenics purposes (with proper court approval of course).

A unique signature is also desirable as then one can track of all information about where a vehicle travels to and from. That way a better design of roads can be made to take into consideration of where the most ideal roads highways etc should be.

What would such a system cost? Maybe a few hundred dollars for each car and a 100 million dollars from the government, so lets say a few hundred million dollars.

What benefits would such a system have? You will get to wherever you need to go in a much shorter time; there will be less traffic on the roads at any one time: you will be able to control traffic lights, eliminate traffic jams, and reduce accidents.

Main Roads could also use this system to understand how the dynamics of traffic flow is changing, so there would be no need for the old strips on the road to measure traffic flow and they could develop and ungrade the roads, traffic control systems, speed limits, etc., as they are required to be changed. Withe the collected databases they could also simulate the effect of putting in (or removing) a new road or traffic control system, etc..

Why Perth? Perth is one of the fasting growing cities in the world, and the effect of traffic flow is crucial for planning for such a large aread city. Potentially Perth might be one of the biggest cities in the world one day because its boundaries are limitless.

With vehicle identity we could do quite a lot of other things, like catch criminals, know how often everyone has been speeding, and use usage to registration costs. With a receiver on each car we can also limit how fast a car can go in a specific speed limit area or at least tell the driver he or she is speeding, etc..

With wireless technology freely available the future is here.

This idea can be applied to any other city or region in the world.