Artificial Intelligence will improve safety in Urban Mobility

“The future of mobility in large cities will benefit from new energy and artificial intelligence technology, which will make urban transportation safer and more efficient. Electrification will take over transportation much faster than anyone had anticipated, mainly because in 5 to 10 years, at the latest, electric driving will be cheaper than vehicles with combustion engines. Autonomous mobility will make vehicles much safer, with implicitly safe traffic, and much more comfortable. But the real added value of fully autonomous cars is increasingly in question, due to the huge technological and legal challenges, which can be solved if it were not for the lack of a real business case to justify the huge development cost required.

In the case of Latin America, the outlook is positive and the region faces the challenge of moving towards smart, efficient and safe mobility. Countries in the region can refrain from investing massively in expensive infrastructure and focus on smarter vehicles, and doing so “leap frog” on new developments by skipping a few intermediate steps.

Artificial intelligence in mobility has already arrived in Latin America, through vehicle-based traffic information, which is already a common good. Many countries are leveraging that strength to use all the smart data from vehicles to improve traffic management.

Another example where Latin America is leading the way are the bus rapid transit systems that are well known for outperforming traditional rail systems in many ways. That is pure intelligent mobility. A potential next step is the huge potential of new electrified two-wheelers and all kinds of micro-mobility systems. Artificial intelligence helps make vehicles much safer and more comfortable, plus it can greatly improve transportation planning by aligning all search and demand data, and monitoring travel behavior. Another important area is logistics, where intelligence can and should dramatically increase efficiency.

To break down barriers to investment in smart mobility and projects in the region, it is necessary to incentifize the purchase of smart technology and focus infrastructure on security. In the end, implicit safety comes mainly from a combination of infrastructure design and smarter vehicles.“

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Carlo van de Weijer’s keynote "The Influence of Artificial Intelligence in the Future of Mobility" at Intertraffic Mexico is scheduled for Tuesday 8 November 2022. Visitors can register online.

For more information on Intertraffic Mexico 2022, check out our website (in Spanish and English) or reach out to a team member. We look forward to welcoming you to Centro Citibanamex in Mexico City from 8-10 November 2022!