Rogers pilots two programs designed to make communities safer and more sustainable
Leveraging the Internet of Things to optimize traffic flow, eliminate parking search, and reduce our carbon footprint
Urban communities in Canada continue to grow. It’s not hard to see why, as residents enjoy a host of comforts and conveniences – from restaurants and shopping to sports and theaters. But that growth also brings some challenges, first among them more traffic. Whether it’s the cars on the road or added strain on parking resources, municipalities can struggle with congestion.
Rogers and our employees are dedicated to the communities where we do business – after all this is where we live too, and these are places we love. In 2020 the company donated over $225 million to various community organizations across Canada, and our employees put in more than 50,000 volunteer hours. We all face the same struggle with traffic ourselves, every day. Hence, we are very excited to announce pilot projects for two solutions designed to help our communities with their congestion problems – Smart Traffic and Smart Parking.
Smart Traffic – optimizing traffic flow in near real time
Rogers Smart Traffic is an AI-powered traffic signal solution that connects road users to the city grid, digitizing urban intersections to help municipal agencies improve the safety of road users while increasing the efficient flow of traffic. The solution’s cameras and radar, coupled with AI-based detection and analytics, can identify all types of road users, including pedestrians, cyclists, e-scooters, public transport, even people with wheelchairs, which empowers communities to improve traffic equity and safety. The platform eliminates the need to re-time signals to manage traffic variability, while future-proofing cities for the connected and autonomous era. We have teamed up with NoTraffic, a global leader whose digitized traffic management service is already in use in several large US cities, to bring this solution to Canadians.
Rogers has a technology partnership with the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. We are launching a pilot program that will install the Smart Traffic sensors and traffic management system at a total of nine locations (seven signalized intersections and two roundabouts). The program aims to generate information about traffic and share the information between intersections to coordinate the signals and enhance traffic flow.
Smart Parking – reduce traffic to promote sustainability & boost revenues
Rogers Smart Parking seamlessly guides drivers to the most convenient available space, reducing both traffic and vehicle emissions. Parking data is collected from overhead sensors that identify the position of a parked car and an available parking space. The privacy of drivers is maintained by utilizing edge computing, so that the data captured are reduced to simply the coordinates of each parking space and its availability. Less time wasted searching for parking not only promotes sustainability and driver satisfaction, but also helps maximize revenues from parking assets. To deliver this solution we teamed up with Cleverciti, whose innovative AI-driven parking system is already in use around Europe and in the US.
Rogers is installing the Smart Parking solution at our campus in Brampton, Ontario, one of our largest offices. Ultimately, we will be using the solution to manage all 3,202 parking spaces, providing frictionless parking guidance to employees and visitors alike. The objective is to maximize impact by achieving 100% driver adoption of the parking guidance. This is done by consolidating reliable real-time occupancy data and distributing that data to both digital signs and a mobile app. The result is every driver experiences effortless, turn-by-turn guidance to free spaces. We expect this program to greatly reduce traffic from parking search and reduce our carbon footprint at the Brampton location.
Making our communities safer and more sustainable
At Rogers we have more than 25,000 employees at numerous offices across Canada, working in everything from a traditional office to trucks to our customers’ homes. This gives us ample opportunity to actually use all the solutions we sell, putting them to the test in real-world conditions. Smart Traffic and Smart Parking are no exception.
Both the UBC and Brampton pilot programs will run until June of 2022. We look forward to sharing the results, and further demonstrating how these solutions can help build resilient, sustainable communities across the country.
Next steps
To learn more about how Smart Traffic and Smart Parking can lead to safer and more sustainable communities, contact a Rogers for Business representative.
This post is part of a series on transforming cities with smart technology. Check out the related posts here.