To support the rapid growth of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, we worked with TransCore to design and implement a system that completely modernized the city’s approach to managing traffic. This included deploying our flagship ACDSS® product as part of the TransSuite® software solution to improve traffic signal operations at 350 of Riyadh’s busiest intersections.
In the early 2010s, Riyadh was growing at breakneck speed, with many large-scale construction projects like Metro Rail and Bus Rapid Transit dotting the landscape. However, its fixed-time traffic control system was not equipped to manage increased traffic demand.
Inspired by the success of our work with Transcore in building TransSuite/ACDSS solutions for New York City, Riyadh recruited us to help create a system that could improve the flow of traffic throughout the city through automatically adjusting traffic signal timing in response to real-time traffic conditions.
While Transcore led this massive design-build-operate-maintain project, our work focused on developing the traffic adaptive components and traffic control policies. Once Transcore finished installing state-of-the-art traffic signal controllers and video-based traffic sensors at more than 300 intersections around the city, we then got to work in configuring the field devices, integrating the system with TransSuite and ACDSS, performing traditional traffic engineering to augment traffic signal control policies, and training operations staff at the traffic control center.
The rapid growth of the city brought a series of challenges to its transportation agency—not only in managing traffic but also in building capacity internally to support it. Our project team worked closely with the City to help them understand the features and capabilities of TransSuite/ACDSS and how these are tools in their toolbox for traffic management.
Our data analytics team built the ACDSS dashboard generator (ADG), which generated several different types of data visualization dashboards to assist the City with planning, troubleshooting, maintenance, and evaluation. These dashboards represented a significant breakthrough in the project as they empowered the City to better understand the system’s operations at both a high, city-wide level and at the small-scale, intersection level.
Post-deployment, it was observed that over 90% of intersections saw an improvement or comparable operations prior to installing the system.
We continue to work with the City and TransCore to support maintenance of the system, help them operate the system, and provide training as needed. This project set the standard for adaptive traffic management on a large scale, and we were excited to have had the opportunity to be a part of such an innovative endeavor.
