Las Vegas Works With Cisco On Innovation District

In partnership with Cisco, the City of Las Vegas continues to expand its smart city projects, using its innovation district as a test bed.

“Instead of going out and doing what others might do, which is go ahead and buy one system and just plonk that into their entire city, we test it in a small pilot area, we get reactions from the community, we get reactions from the government leaders, and see how that technology works,” said Michael Sherwood, CIO for the City of Las Vegas. “We’re able to work with them in that playground and sort of refine it, hone it, and test it out, and then, once it’s good, we can expand it out throughout the community.”

Reducing congestion at major intersections for vehicles, pedestrians, and bicycles is a primary goal of the project. The collected data will be used to reroute vehicles, improve the efficiency of traffic lights, and increase public safety.

“Using IoT technology now, we’re able to look at the intersection in ways we’ve never looked at it before, using assets we already own. We own streetlights, we own these signal interchanges,” said Sherwood. “We’re able to look at intersections now and count the number of vehicles that go through an intersection. Not only count the number of vehicles, [but also] the number of bicyclists, and the number of pedestrians … with this intelligent architecture, we’re able to see how people use the street. We’re actually able to use the analytics now to look at the intersection at night and see that you’re the only car there, so instead of the timer-basis that we use today — that’s just a timer, which is why you experience that 1-in-the-morning [red light] when you’re there for what feels like years — now the camera technology can look at that and make changes.”

It is hoped that the data could also be used in future to prepare for the use of autonomous vehicles.