b'BREAKING THE BOX WITH GRIDSMART 19.3 BY JEFF PRICE, VP AND GENERAL MANAGER, GRIDSMARTCities all over the world have been striving to make their infrastructure morepeople-friendlyratherthancar-friendly.Weseewidened sidewalks, fewer vehicle travel lanes, and an increasing number of bike paths and bike lanes. With these changes, more bicyclists are using theThe GRIDSMART System powered by Intel technologies, as you probably roadways, and intersections have increasing numbers of bicyclists andWHEN EVERYknow by now, uses a horizon-to-horizon fisheye camera that sees the other vulnerable road users passing through every day. BICYCLIST ISactual intersection, not just the approaches and stop-lines like traditional systems. That capability, along with the power of computer vision and Most bicyclists, of course, travel through intersections more slowly thanTREATED LIKEdeep learning, enables version 19.3 to detect, track, and discriminate a vehicles. Many communities require that traffic signal control systemsbicyclist into and all the way through the intersection.providebicyclistslongerminimumgreentimestoensuretheirsafeA STATISTIC, passage. Traditional systems have relied on seeing a bike at the stop-lineGREEN TIMEThe center of the intersection past the stop-lines, where vehicle pathsthe entrance to the actual intersectionand then providing a fixedmight cross, is often referred to as the box. By tracking bicyclists all and long minimum green. IS WASTED ONthe way through the box, version 19.3 doesnt have to rely on some fixed statisticstoprovideadequateclearancetime.Instead,GRIDSMART The fixed green time provided by these traditional systems is not basedFASTER CYCLISTS,provides signals so that the green time can be extended just long enough on the bicyclists speed or path through the intersection, but just on someWHILE CYCLISTSfor the bike to clear the intersection. By using green extensions to provide statistics meant to protect slower travelers. But when every bicyclist issafe passage, the GRIDSMART 19.3 bike discriminator can be tuned to err treated like only a statistic, green time is wasted on faster cyclists, whileTRAVELING BELOWon the side of caution, because a short extension for something traveling cyclists traveling below those expected speeds might be endangered. fast has little impact on total provided green time.THOSE EXPECTED One must also consider failure mechanisms. If a traditional system SPEEDS MIGHT BEAll of this means that communities can improve bike safety by having a that detects bikes only at the stop-linemakes a mistake, then eithermore aggressive bike detector, recover valuable green time when bicyclists (a) green time is wasted, because there is no bicyclist, or much worse, (b)ENDANGERED. clear the box quickly, and also enable safe roadway access to bicyclists the bicyclist will receive only a very short, vehicle-based minimum greenwhomightbemovingalittleslowerthanthestatistics.GRIDSMART and potentially be at risk. version 19.3 provides safety first and efficiency by design. 17'