- 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. 

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200724/2866766-1 

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 Xi'an traffic police worked with experts from Hikvision, as well as urban 
planning experts, internet service providers and other technology companies, to 
design and implement an intelligent traffic management system. The construction 
of this system fully utilizes Hikvision's core advantages in urban 
transportation intelligence, employing AI-powered video to create a powerful 
traffic sensing system. "Effectively, we are building a bridge between an 
intelligent digital world and the physical urban transportation network in 
Xi'an," explains Lihu. 

The technical solution

The intelligent traffic management system analyzes comprehensive and detailed 
data about the movement of traffic through the urban Xi'an area, and uses the 
insight gathered to make the flow of traffic more smoothly in three key ways.

1. Comprehensive road traffic violation monitoring

Xi'an traffic police have installed Hikvision's Checkpoint Capture Cameras and 
Intersection Violation Capture Units as part of a monitoring system that can 
detect illegal vehicle behavior at intersections. 

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. 

More importantly, the intelligent traffic management system uses advanced 
machine learning capabilities to gain insight into typical congestion patterns, 
in order to actively identify potential traffic events before they happen. By 
analyzing large volumes of road condition data and information from Hikvision's 
intelligent video cameras, the system can predict which intersections are most 
prone to congestion and when, enabling traffic police to put evasive measures 
in place before serious issues arise. 

3. Improved vehicle flow capacity with intelligent signal control

The Xi'an traffic management team also employs congestion management practices 
to ease the flow of traffic, largely through the optimization of signal timing. 

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. 

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

The Xi'an traffic management system has now been trained with a wealth of 
traffic data, including Hikvision video, enabling it to build multiple 
intelligent algorithms for managing congestion in the city. 

First of all, map-based congestion reports suggest that Xi'an's congestion 
rankings have improved significantly. In fact, compared with the test results 
of pilot roads before the system went live, intelligent signal control alone 
has increased the throughput of traffic by 10%, while the average vehicle 
journey time is reduced by about 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 offenses 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. 

In the process of urbanization, tackling congestion is not only about improving 
the flow of the transportation network: it's also basic governance for building 
a smart city. 

You can find out more about Hikvision's intelligent traffic solution here 
(https://www.hikvision.com/en/solutions/solutions-by-industry/traffic/traffic-fl
ow-optimization/).

SOURCE  Hikvision

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   Caption: Xi'an urban traffic