China, US eye cooperation on traffic

Darrell M. West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution speaks at a seminar to promote smart transportation cooperation between China and the US on Friday, December 15, 2017. [Photo: caict.ac.cn]

A senior US expert is suggesting China and America share promising prospects in dealing with traffic problems by using information and communication technologies.

CRI's Guan Chao reports.

A recent index has put seven cities in China and the United States on this year's list of the most 15 congested cities in the world.

Last Friday, a seminar was held in Beijing to address traffic problems facing both of the world's top two economies.

Among the participants was Darrell M. West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

He suggested that the similar technological strengths and traffic conditions of the two countries make their cooperation potential in this regard very huge.

"I think there is very good cooperation potential in the sense that there are similar problems both in China and the United States. There are technology solutions that we improve the situation in terms of highway facilities and traffic flow. So what the two countries can do is start to share information and take research, learn from one another and basically, develop common standards that can improve the way the transportation system operates."

As part of the meeting, a White Paper on Smart Transportation was published jointly by Brookings and the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

It shows that traffic congestion in both countries could lead to a waste of 3 billion gallons of fuel and nearly 7 billion hours of time every year.

Darrell believed the expanding application of Big Data and new technologies can help traffic authorities to improve road transportation efficiency.

"Didi has amazing data on traffic flows in Beijing as well as other major Chinese cities and this type of information that can help the government optimize traffic flows and can develop intelligent traffic signals as opposed to traffic signals switching every 45 seconds or some fixed intervals you can shift based on the flow of traffic."

Liu Duo is Director of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology

She suggested joint efforts might be made to develop the so-called Internet of Vehicles which is designed to enable information sharing and the gathering of information on vehicles, roads and their surroundings.

"We believe the Sino-US cooperation both on the development of new-generation information technologies and the innovative integration of new technologies and traditional industries will have great significance and generate win-win results."

The white paper also proposes proactive government policies to create development environment.

It also calls for joint efforts from the government, industry and enterprises to set up standards for the technology application.