Tal Kreisler is the CEO and Co-Founding father of NoTraffic, a platform that digitizes street infrastructure administration, permitting cities to handle their complete grid on the push of a button.
NoTraffic transforms intersections into clever hubs able to real-time site visitors administration. Their AI-powered platform leverages edge computing to course of information domestically, guaranteeing speedy response to altering site visitors circumstances. The know-how contains V2X capabilities for linked and autonomous automobiles and accommodates non-connected automobiles and susceptible street customers (VRUs), offering a complete view of site visitors dynamics. NoTraffic is at present working in additional than 25 U.S. states and in Canada, serving thousands and thousands of drivers per day.
Are you able to give us a quick overview of NoTraffic and what impressed you to develop an AI-powered mobility platform?
NoTraffic is a first-of-its-kind AI-powered mobility platform, that transforms outdated intersections into good, cloud-connected hubs. The platform leverages AI, edge computing applied sciences and V2X communication to optimize site visitors circulation, cut back congestion, and improve street security, whereas considerably reducing carbon emissions.
The thought behind NoTraffic stemmed from a easy but irritating expertise skilled by one among our Co-Founders, Uriel Katz, who discovered himself sitting caught at a pink mild at an empty intersection late at evening. This pointless ready made him notice that conventional site visitors administration programs had been outdated and inefficient, counting on set timing plans that didn’t adapt to real-time circumstances. This sparked the concept of making a extra trendy resolution—one which leverages AI to dynamically handle site visitors based mostly on precise street utilization and circumstances.
To handle this problem we based NoTraffic in 2017, with the purpose of revolutionizing city mobility and site visitors administration. Regardless of not having a background in site visitors administration, our contemporary perspective allowed us to assume creatively and method the issue with an out-of-the field resolution. Quick ahead to right this moment, and NoTraffic is on the forefront of redefining city mobility, future-proofing our cities into smarter and extra environment friendly ecosystems.
How does NoTraffic’s AI-powered platform rework conventional intersections into clever hubs?
NoTraffic’s platform transforms conventional intersections into good, linked hubs by integrating AI-driven sensors and edge computing capabilities seamlessly into current infrastructure, leveraging a fusion of superior radar and digicam know-how to realize 99% detection accuracy, no matter climate circumstances. These sensors detect and determine all forms of street customers, from automobiles to micromobility customers, in real-time, enabling the platform to dynamically alter site visitors indicators, optimizing the circulation of site visitors and enhancing security on the roads.
The platform’s real-time communication with a cloud-based system ensures steady studying and updates, permitting intersections to reply intelligently to actual time altering circumstances, considerably enhancing the effectivity, security, and general circulation of site visitors throughout city areas.
The platform is made up of 4 core elements:
- Mobility OS (Working system): A cloud-based dashboard that enables for real-time changes and optimizations, essential for managing trendy city mobility.
- AI-driven Edge Gadgets: These guarantee steady connectivity, detect street customers, and hyperlink intersections to the cloud, enabling real-time choices by way of edge computing and superior analytics.
- Mobility Retailer: A primary-of-its-kind function that capabilities like an app retailer, permitting operators to remotely add and replace mobility purposes, guaranteeing adaptability with out expensive {hardware} upgrades.
- 24/7 Help: Steady and dependable operation is assured, with immediate problem decision to keep up security and effectivity.
Are you able to clarify the function of edge computing in your platform and the way it enhances real-time site visitors administration?
Edge computing performs a essential function in NoTraffic’s platform by enabling real-time information processing instantly on the intersection, with out having to first add information to the cloud. This enables the system to make on the spot choices, making site visitors administration each sooner and extra environment friendly. This ensures that site visitors indicators and programs can shortly adapt to altering circumstances, reminiscent of a sudden enhance in pedestrian exercise or giving precedence to emergency automobiles. By localizing information processing, edge computing accelerates decision-making whereas additionally reducing operational prices by minimizing the necessity for cloud-based assets and extra {hardware}. That is important for managing dynamic city site visitors environments, the place fast reactions are important for optimizing site visitors circulation and enhancing security.
How does NoTraffic enhance security at intersections, particularly for susceptible street customers reminiscent of pedestrians and cyclists?
Yearly, over 700 deaths are brought on by pink mild runners, together with fatalities amongst pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.
NoTraffic improves security at intersections through the use of AI-powered cameras and radar detection to precisely determine and differentiate between all forms of street customers, together with pedestrians, cyclists, and scooters. After figuring out them, the platform can alter site visitors indicators to prioritize the protection of those susceptible teams. For instance, it could actually prolong inexperienced mild instances or activate pedestrian crossings solely when persons are really ready. The system additionally proactively prevents potential accidents, reminiscent of automobiles working pink lights, by adjusting sign phases in real-time. These measures not solely cut back accidents but additionally create safer intersections, easing congestion on roads, sidewalks, and bike paths.
NoTraffic’s Intersection Security Insights (ISI) is a safety-oriented AI software program utility, designed to reinforce security by correlating site visitors sign phases with automobile actions throughout the cease line, enabling exact monitoring of pink mild runners. The know-how was deployed at 55 intersections throughout three main city site visitors corridors in Tucson, Arizona, and was capable of considerably cut back pink mild working infractions. Over a 3-month interval, ISI enabled the town of Tucson to scale back pink mild runners by 42% throughout these corridors, equating to 294 lives saved yearly.
In what methods does your platform cut back CO2 emissions and mitigate site visitors congestion in city areas?
As our roads grow to be more and more crowded with a mixture of automobiles, bikes, and pedestrians, congestion is on the rise—rising by 12% every year. The ensuing gridlock results in dangerous CO2 emissions and a 10.5% enhance in site visitors accidents, making our roads much less secure.
NoTraffic addresses these challenges by optimizing site visitors circulation at intersections by pairing AI-driven real-time site visitors evaluation with edge-compute-enabled on-premise sensors that make on the spot choices. This easy-to-install software-defined SaaS platform adjusts site visitors mild patterns based mostly on real-time circumstances, minimizing idle instances and decreasing pointless stops and begins. By enhancing the effectivity of site visitors indicators, NoTraffic decreases the time automobiles spend idling at pink lights, which reduces gas consumption and lowers emissions. NoTraffic empowers Departments of Transportation and different stakeholders to effectively handle growing site visitors quantity and cut back congestion and CO2 emissions, contributing to a extra environment friendly and environmentally pleasant city mobility system.
Certainly one of NoTraffic’s key options obtainable on its Mobility Retailer is Optimization Mode, which leverages predictions to judge hundreds of potential site visitors eventualities in actual time to optimize site visitors circulation, cut back congestions, and enhance general security. When deployed on the College of British Columbia, the answer eased campus site visitors and improved circulation at intersections, resulting in a discount in greenhouse fuel emissions. By utilizing edge based mostly computing, NoTraffic was capable of optimize site visitors circulation by calculating hundreds of potential eventualities for each roadway consumer, and figuring out probably the most applicable one in real-time. Implementation of the answer enabled NoTraffic to scale back carbon emissions by 75 tons per 12 months.
How does NoTraffic combine with linked and autonomous automobiles via V2X know-how?
NoTraffic’s platform is designed to totally assist V2X (Automobile-to-All the pieces) communication, enabling seamless integration with linked and autonomous automobiles. By V2X, NoTraffic-equipped intersections can alternate real-time information with automobiles, enabling extra environment friendly and safer site visitors administration.
NoTraffic has commercialized V2X know-how with two specialised packages for linked and autonomous automobiles: a Security Bundle and an Effectivity Bundle. These packages present units of messages to automobiles utilizing C-V2X or DSRC protocols, supplementing V2X capabilities with information from NoTraffic sensors and offering exterior blind spot info, Sign Part and Timing (SPaT) enhanced driver choices, Crimson Mild Runner (RLR) detection, and different security options.
By integrating V2X communication, NoTraffic’s platform fuses and shares information generated by their proprietary clever edge sensors along with linked and autonomous automobiles information and different information sources to handle site visitors flows in actual time and forestall potential collisions. The system supplies automobiles with essential info reminiscent of SPaT, collision warnings, and optimum pace suggestions. This real-time connectivity ensures smoother site visitors circulation, reduces conflicts, and enhances the secure and environment friendly operation of autonomous automobiles.
What measures are in place to make sure the platform additionally accommodates non-connected automobiles and street customers?
NoTraffic’s platform is constructed to accommodate all street customers, from automobiles and bikes to pedestrians and emergency automobiles, even in difficult climate circumstances. Its superior sensors allow municipalities to optimize site visitors circulation for all commuters whereas decreasing congestion on roads, sidewalks, and bike paths.
The platform’s superior AI sensors can detect and analyse the behaviour of each street consumer, no matter their connectivity standing. This ensures that non-connected automobiles and pedestrians are all the time thought-about in real-time site visitors choices.
What challenges have you ever confronted in scaling the deployment of your platform throughout totally different areas?
Scaling the NoTraffic platform throughout totally different areas offered important challenges, significantly as a result of complexity of integrating a cloud based mostly interface, referred to as our Mobility OS (Working system), with edge gadgets at each intersection.
One of many predominant challenges was adapting the cloud-based Mobility OS (Working System) and edge gadgets to fulfill the varied technical requirements and infrastructure capabilities throughout totally different areas. Every area had its personal algorithm, laws, and necessities, and so the platform needed to be customized and tailored to fulfill the wants of every area, and guarantee seamless integration with current site visitors programs. Moreover, managing the excessive bandwidth necessities wanted for real-time communication between the cloud and the sting gadgets. To handle this, NoTraffic applied edge computing inside their {hardware}, permitting a good portion of analytics to be processed domestically earlier than sending the outcomes to the cloud for additional evaluation. This decreased bandwidth utilization whereas additionally making the answer less expensive for each NoTraffic and their clients.
One other problem was the necessity to replace, improve, and preserve software program for a whole lot of hundreds of gadgets throughout varied areas. To fight this, NoTraffic developed sturdy over the air mechanisms to allow speedy deployment of updates, no matter location. These mechanisms make sure that updates are seamlessly distributed and put in throughout all gadgets, minimizing downtime and sustaining consistency in efficiency and reliability.
Safety was additionally a essential concern, particularly when coping with infrastructure as essential as site visitors administration. NoTraffic applied strict safety protocols tailor-made to every area, guaranteeing that their information remained remoted and guarded, stopping any potential overlap or interference. By leveraging superior cloud safety measures, the corporate ensured that they had been capable of preserve the integrity and confidentiality of information, whereas complying with native laws.
By these methods, NoTraffic efficiently navigated the complexities of growing and scaling a platform that mixes {hardware} and software program, finally delivering a dependable, safe, and cost-effective mobility resolution throughout totally different areas.
How do you envision the way forward for site visitors administration and concrete infrastructure evolving within the subsequent decade?
The way forward for site visitors administration and concrete infrastructure shall be pushed by the widespread adoption of software-enabled gadgets that improve the sustainability and effectivity of cities. Just like how Tesla reinvented automobiles, these gadgets are set to reinvent the remainder of the mobility ecosystem. Superior sensors with built-in communication capabilities, highly effective computing, and the capability to analyse huge quantities of information will grow to be customary. These sensors will provide a variety of companies that may be up to date, adjusted, and repaired remotely, guaranteeing steady enchancment and minimizing the necessity for bodily intervention. The shift in direction of these good, software-driven gadgets will simplify the modernization of infrastructure, cut back waste, and reduce down on the necessity for intensive {hardware}. Visitors gadgets and programs will operate extra like smartphones, the place options will be customized, activated, up to date, or repaired remotely, making infrastructure upgrades smoother, extra inexpensive, and fewer intimidating for municipalities.
One of many key benefits of this know-how is the flexibility to combination information and quantify varied parameters like site visitors enhancements, security enhancements, and emissions reductions. It may possibly additionally allow the identification of traits and assist predictive analytics, providing insights into potential outcomes of particular insurance policies earlier than they’re applied. For instance, the financial impression of site visitors delays could possibly be measured, or before-and-after research might assess the effectiveness of site visitors administration methods – one thing that’s not possible with present programs.
By reimagining transportation programs with these methods, future city areas can obtain enhanced security and improved mobility whereas considerably decreasing their environmental footprint, resulting in extra sustainable and livable cities.
What function do you see AI enjoying in the way forward for good cities and mobility options?
AI will play a significant function in the way forward for good cities and mobility options via information aggregation and decision-making. Due to AI-powered applied sciences being utilized in site visitors administration, cities can now use information to quantify varied parameters, reminiscent of site visitors enhancements, security enhancements, and emission reductions. This information supplies a transparent image of the effectiveness of various site visitors administration methods, enabling cities to take advantage of impactful and helpful choices, tailor-made to the particular wants of every space.
AI additionally permits the identification of traits and helps predictive analytics, providing insights into potential outcomes if particular insurance policies are applied. For instance, utilizing AI cities can now measure the financial impression of site visitors delays, or perform earlier than and after research to measure the effectiveness and success of recent initiatives. By having the ability to again up choices with concrete information, cities are capable of pinpoint issues and implement focused options, one thing that will beforehand have been not possible to realize.