Rekor Systems, Inc., a global AI technology company with a mission to provide actionable insights to build safer, smarter, and more efficient cities around the world through intelligent infrastructure, recently announced the availability of a new report, ‘Safer Roads, Cleaner Air, Happier Motorists – The Promise of Intelligent Variable Speed Limits.’ This report examines today’s AI-powered variable speed limit technologies and their positive impacts on smart city goals around mitigating pollution and climate change, along with increased public safety and improved citizen experience resulting from the lowering of traffic congestion and accidents.
A variable speed limit is a flexible tool used by traffic managers to change the rate at which motorists can drive on a specific stretch of road based on the current environmental and road conditions. It is displayed on an electronic traffic sign.
The paper unpacks the environmental impact of addressing traffic congestion with more roadways and examines VSL’s role in making the nation’s infrastructure smarter and greener. It provides an overview of how artificial intelligence and machine learning, coupled with VSL, are providing cities with the opportunity to make infrastructure more intelligent, with the goal of lowering pollution from traffic congestion without the massive expense and environmental and societal impacts involved with expanding roadways.
The report also delves into how cities and states can exercise great efficiency in leveraging funds they have been allotted under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to implement VSL quickly rather than utilizing those resources building additional roadways to manage traffic congestion and its impacts. Recently, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) advocated for VSL as a way to mitigate or avoid speed related crashes.
