How Africa’s transport authorities can leverage network surveillance and digital solutions
By Rudie Opperman, Manager for Engineering & Training MEA at Axis Communications
Progress in smart city projects and the adoption of digital technologies offer significant potential in how Africa’s cities manage vehicle traffic. With transportation being such a critical function for economic and social activity, it is a challenge that authorities need to step up and fully address.
Traffic is a challenge that affects urban areas across Africa. The city of Johannesburg, South Africa’s most populous city, experiences severe traffic resulting from a confluence of issues including power outages, faulty traffic lights, and infrastructure theft. Meanwhile, Cape Town, where almost 90% of residents use road networks to commute every day, must factor variables such as its proximity to the coastline and Table Mountain when it comes to traffic management and route planning.
Authorities can confront congestion and traffic management by leveraging new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics, backed by advancements in surveillance camera systems, which now feature increased resolution, improved low-light capabilities, and higher frame rates, yielding an enhanced viewing experience. With these advancements, as well as the data they capture, authorities can do much more than keep an eye out for incidents. Using AI-powered surveillance solutions, they can adopt a proactive stance and leverage new tools for managing traffic, protecting road users, and maintaining infrastructure.
Network surveillance: A new pair of eyes
Though there have been improvements over the years in terms of how authorities approach route planning, it is still done using a blanket approach with minimal consideration for broader factors and objectives.
Network surveillance systems change this by providing authorities with real-time data – vehicle descriptions, travelling speeds, license plate recognition, and road conditions – which enhances their overview and provides detailed information regarding road activity. Weather is also a valuable resource for unlocking data-driven insights. Wind speed and direction can impact vehicles’ fuel consumption and, in turn, affect their routing, as well as observations of vehicles struggling for road traction or switching on fog lights. With these insights, authorities can manage traffic lanes and speeds, ultimately making the difference between free-flowing traffic and complete gridlock.
Parking is also a challenge that authorities and urban planners face. Using surveillance cameras to identify available spaces and track them in real time, operators can allocate and direct drivers to them. This also sets the stage for Africa’s adoption of autonomous vehicles (AVs), and through vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology, authorities can optimise travelling times and streamline parking allocations by letting vehicles communicate with the surveillance systems directly.
Taking a proactive stance on road accidents and urban development
The goal of any transport authority is to make roads as safe as possible for users, minimise the potential for any incidents, and use subsequent information to enhance their decision-making. That said, authorities need to adopt a proactive stance when it comes to accidents, taking remedial action before one has even taken place. They can achieve this using surveillance data, which can inform them of the preventative measures they need to take based on driver and road user behaviour. By observing variables such as high speeds, rapid acceleration, vehicle skids, and the use of horns, authorities can better measure the effectiveness of any measures taken to improve road safety.
At the same time, this data can be used to improve the decision-making of urban planners. Case in point, today, many cities invest in digital twins to model the impact of new proposals before their rollout, and surveillance systems provide both real-time and historical data that help improve the accuracy of those models. With them, authorities can introduce new public safety or reinvestment policies, new revenue-generating schemes, and vehicle user incentives, as well as unlock immediate benefits such as reduced congestion, a decreased likelihood of accidents, and more consistent average speeds, all thanks to surveillance systems and solutions on the ground collecting data.
Africa’s transportation authorities stand to benefit greatly from their investments in digital technologies. Implemented correctly and with the help of trusted hardware vendors, they can make the best decisions in the interests of citizens and businesses, with the result being an upgraded, informed and efficient road experience.