Bear with me on this. I am neither the most savvy cop on the globe nor am I a user of two cups and a piece of string. Although I have previously written about predictive policing, this is something different. Entirely different.
An Israeli technology startup called Waycare Technologies purports advancements using artificial intelligence (AI) to the degree that traffic crashes can be foreseen and prevented by highway patrol police, positioning cops in more of a proactive versus reactive mode. Some may call that predictive policing while others see it as prescient policing.
Waycare Technologies calls it “AI-driven mobility solutions for smart cities.”
No matter how it is categorized, cops can receive phenomenal back-up from AI-oriented software engineering. And one particular state police agency didn’t blink.
The Nevada Highway Patrol (NHP), the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT), and the state’s Regional Transportation Center (RTC) partnered with Waycare to take the AI-based technology for a test drive, taking mobility integration to “smart city” elevation.
Waycare CEO Noam Maital offers a cloud-based pilot package engineered to optimize traffic management operations and emergency response to crash scenes, natural elements posing risks, and other hazardous roadway issues motorists may encounter.
“The Waycare platform, which draws on everything from social media to crowdsourcing apps like Waze, refines and synthesizes information including speed, braking and acceleration data, then puts it to work predicting potential highway trouble spots,” wrote Theo Douglas.
“Combining data sets, city infrastructure and ecosystems — everything from weather patterns to road construction and special events — lets the platform ‘turn decisions into a proactive method with predictive analytics,'” Waycare CEO Maital shared with GovernmentTechnology.com.
“Combining data sets, city infrastructure and ecosystems — everything from weather patterns to road construction and special events — lets the platform ‘turn decisions into a proactive method with predictive analytics,'” Waycare CEO Noam Maital said.
“When you’re identifying hard brakes or acceleration within the vehicle, that’s stuff that’s used today for insurance. It’s used today for fleet management. But it isn’t used by cities to identify accidents or near accidents or congestion events or any event that happens, a spill on the road,” CEO Maital colorized for a tour group interested in his company’s AI-based product. Big Brother is nothing novel, but what we are constructively doing with mined data is!
I am not sure which of the two is more fascinating about Waycare’s artificial intelligence epoch: That we have such a phenomenal technology or that cities are just now entertaining its use.
Definitely a far cry from the traditional wait and see aka hope drivers do the right thing mantra.
“We look at where traffic incidents are most likely to occur in that two-hour timeframe to shift the traffic management center [and law enforcement officers] from reactive to proactive,” Maital pointed out.
“Now, the troopers don’t have to ask dispatch [where to go], because they can just pull it up,” said Nevada Department of Public Safety (DPS) Lt. Col. Dan Solow.
I spent my entire police career on the roads. In-car laptops and telecommunications systems connected me to public safety dispatchers who relayed information received via 9-1-1 callers. Both verbally and digitally, our cops would receive info and respond ex post facto: The event happened and we are on the way to sort through the pieces of wreckage and hone-in on culpable drivers.
Any AI features woven into police work is a public safety godsend. It’s a win-win for both cops and motorists.
Transportation engineering technicians concentrate on traffic flow. To be effective, hot spots where troubles are chronic are the target areas from which Waycare’s unique insights-driven platform resolves potential carnage before it occurs.
Traffic-monitoring tech will make cities smarter and safer
Israel’s Waycare – already in use in Las Vegas -… https://t.co/ccQTpusfWc— TIFAC (@TIFAC_India) December 21, 2017
The Las Vegas Traffic Management Center houses over a dozen live feeds of Freeway and Arterial System of Transportation (FAST) footage from more than 700 cameras across southern Nevada. According to the latest US Census Bureau data, there are approximately 2,998,039 residents in the state of Nevada. But that number pales in comparison to the state’s visitation roles.
Naturally, the glitzy glam, gambling ga-ga, and kaleidoscope of colored lights in Las Vegas draws millions more on the daily. Folks flock to Vegas because…nowhere else can you me mesmerized by lights while gazing upon the vast collection of one-of-a-kind iconic replicas such as the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and others, under a backdrop of infinite fireworks displays.
Per the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, FY-2017 tabulated a whopping 42,215,900 tourists in Sin City. So, it is no shock that the roadways are often a jumble of folks scrambling in cars. And that falls to the responsible hands of NHP and local cops praying for (ahem) self-governance. Cops are dreamers too, ya know.
According to GovernmentTechnology.com, public safety “dispatchers and 911 callers were once key sources of outside information. And troopers were anxious to find a way to cut response times and clear accidents faster, knowing that the probability of secondary collisions rise more than 2.5 percent for every minute a travel lane is blocked.”
As a motorist yourself, that statistic is easily understood. As a motorist myself, I see more and more drivers pulling to the shoulder (or encroaching upon another driver’s lane-space) to avoid a slowdown stemming from a traffic crash, and that denotes excessive speed and shortsighted focus…until it is too late.
Speed, speed, speed. It’s fair to say the equation speed + blocked travel lanes = another crash.
Speed, speed, speed. It’s fair to say the equation speed + blocked travel lanes = another crash.
All states now have some modernized control center monitoring traffic operations across their respective state jurisdiction. The hands on the clock do not slow, but the movements on the bank of traffic ops screens keep pace: cars, trucks, Rvs…it’s all in a days work. Wrecks are inevitable, and transportation department monitors are on-duty 24/7/365…communicating traffic crashes and road hazards to law enforcement officers out patrolling the labyrinth of highways and byways.
TxDOT employees John Gold and Kenneth Thomas monitor road conditions at the Combined Transportation Emergency and Communications Center – Michael Amador; Texas Department of Transportation. (Credit: American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials)
“You can sit and stare at these cameras for so long. You know you’re missing something,” said David D. Crisler, Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) traffic operations supervisor at the center.
Waycare Technologies heard that wolf cry…and did something to enhance the operational capacity while also driving down motor vehicle hodge-podge.
“Speed limits, crashes and bumper-to-bumper traffic may become a thing of the past (or at least less of an annoyance) thanks to Israeli technology.”
“Speed limits, crashes and bumper-to-bumper traffic may become a thing of the past (or at least less of an annoyance) thanks to Israeli technology,” wrote Brian Blum of Israel21c.org. Along with troopers employed by the Nevada Highway Patrol, I say “Cheers to that!”
Nevada Highway Patrol is known as an innovative law enforcement agency, touting public safety programs to ensure highway transportation flows without a hitch.
One of NHP’s well-thought-out and popular programs is its “Cars & Cops” concept whereby state patrol cops drive a specially-outfitted police cruiser upon which are highway safety factors and motor vehicle tidbits for drivers; like having Driver’s Ed classes, except the cops are doing the teaching instead of Mr. McGillicuddy.
Among Nevada Highway Patrol’s traffic safety programs is “Cars & Cops” whereby educational public safety messages adorn a police cruiser which is driven around the communities. (Credit: Nevada Highway Patrol Southern Command)
The Human Element
Like any cop, I saw more than enough bizarre, stupid, foolish, arrogant driver behaviors to give other artificial intelligence (aliens) the impression that many of us are addicted bumper-car operators.
Now that I think about it, “artificial intelligence” is often epitomized by careless and reckless motorists who brazenly evince nitwitted operation of their wheels. Don’t hate me for being the bearer of news that may offend. Like me for being honest. A cop-career’s worth of police traffic crash reports and photos of twisted-metal carnage compel my candor as it relates to crashes, especially those resulting in one or more unequivocally preventable fatalities.
According to NDOT, “Talking on the phone while driving increases chances of a serious injury by four times.”(Credit: Nevada Department of Transportation)
Wayfare’s cloud-based network is engineered to measure the deceleration and acceleration so that driver behavior is captured and translated as unsafe driving. That interpretation is furnished to NHP cops who intervene by locating/stopping such a motorist based on observed traffic infractions or precursors to peril.
When drivers are talking on a cell phone while operating a motor vehicle, unwittingly pumping the brake and gas pedal, focus is elsewhere and not on the road.
Like other states combatting “distracted driving,” Nevada enacted hands-free cell phone laws in 2012. But that does not necessarily mean drivers will abide by the rules. That means Waycare’s system of early detection may save drivers who are too distracted to save themselves. Who can argue that kind of Big Brother assistance?
We Are All Connected
Only recently have I noticed more and more information-sharing regarding “connected cars.” Israeli writer Brian Blum said, “The real key to making a system like Waycare work is incorporating data from vehicles. That’s coming fast: 30 percent of new vehicles are connected, meaning they’re automatically sending information on how they’re being driven to someone, somewhere – say, the automaker [or] a fleet manager.
“Data can also come from the GPS device on your phone. Apps like Waze and Google Maps record how fast you’re going, when you brake and when traffic has stalled. Why not use that in transportation management?” Blum emphasized.
Yeah, yeah, I know: More privacy invasion. Prescient about privacy concerns also, Waycare CEO Maital relieves such worries, saying, “We have no interest in monitoring cars on the individual level. It has no relevancy for traffic management and it’s not what the city wants or needs. One vehicle doesn’t tell you the complete story.”
“We have no interest in monitoring cars on the individual level. It has no relevancy for traffic management and it’s not what the city wants or needs. One vehicle doesn’t tell you the complete story.”
As any policeman among roughly 900,000 cops monitoring approximately 327,055, 000 (and growing) Americans and droves of visitors in our beloved nation…I would welcome Waycare and artificial intelligence networking to preempt the carnage born of driving privilege gone awry.
CEO Maital coined it well when he framed AI and traffic mitigation for media entity Israel21c.com: “The amount spent on preventing homicides or terrorism was completely disproportional to combatting fatalities from traffic accidents. So we thought, let’s see how we can use technology like AI [artificial intelligence] and data learning to impact our communities.” As any cop can attest, traffic woes and crashes consume an inordinate amount of duty time. More critically, traffic crashes needlessly take many lives.
Smartening cities as best possible can never be an unwise choice.
“Since the system went live around late-September [2017], officials have charted a 12 percent improvement in NHP response times, and a 23 percent drop in secondary collisions — often more serious than primary collisions — all because accidents are being cleared faster,” wrote Mr. Douglas.
As I admitted at the opening of this article, I am not a super savvy sort. This AI stuff intrigues the heck out of me. But I am not the only copper who feels that way. NHP Capt. Tom Ely called Waycare’s prescient platform “pretty slick stuff,” imploring its optimized ability to mitigate traffic-hell by launching police deployments to would-be incidents which haven’t even occurred…yet.
“As a state agency, we don’t always get access to the latest and greatest technology, and this is the latest and greatest,” Captain Ely boasted. Indeed, crystal balls are utopian for police work.
