Matthew Sparkes in New Scientist:
Drivers on a busy US freeway have been controlled by an AI since March, as part of a study that has put a machine-learning system in charge of setting variable speed limits on the road. The impact on efficiency and driver safety is unclear, as researchers are still analysing the results.
Roads with variable speed limits, also known as smart motorways, are common in countries including the US, UK and Germany. Normally, rule-based systems monitor the number of vehicles on one of these roads and adjust speeds accordingly. One such road is a 27-kilometre section of the I-24 freeway near Nashville, Tennessee, which was experiencing a problem that besets many busy roads: when there are too many vehicles, phantom traffic jams appear when drivers brake, slowing vehicles to a crawl and risking crashes as fast-moving vehicles come up behind.
To address this, Daniel Work at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and his colleagues trained an AI on historical traffic data to monitor cameras and make decisions on speed limits, deploying it in the I-24 control room in February.
More here.
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.