Alibaba Cloud to use artificial intelligence to smooth Hangzhou traffic flow
The subsidiary of Alibaba Group will use a smart traffic management system in cooperation with city authorities to help re-route traffic around congested zones
Alibaba Cloud (AliCloud), a subsidiary of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, is extending application of its artificial intelligence technology into real-time traffic prediction in a collaboration with the Hangzhou government to alleviate road congestion.
AliCloud is supporting the government’s “Hangzhou City Brain” plan with its AI and big data analytics capabilities which can carry out real-time traffic forecast, the company announced at a cloud computing conference in Hangzhou on Thursday.
Under a smart traffic management system, AliCloud is able to provide real-time traffic recommendations and travel routes based on its video and image recognition technologies making use of big data.
A pilot programme started in Hangzhou’s Xiaoshan district in September after the group of 20 summit when strict traffic controls were in place.
Wang Jian, chairman of Alibaba’s technology steering committee, said the traffic speed has seen a 11 per cent increase in roads that AliCloud can collect sufficient data. The traffic speed has improved by 2 to 3 per cent in areas with less data, he added.
