Wuhan Tidal Lane Development
2018.12.13
SITE |
Wuhan City, Hubei Province |
OWNER/IMPLEMENTATION UNIT |
Wuhan Traffic Police |
KEY WORDS |
Low-carbon travel; tidal lane; congestion management |
COMPLETION TIME |
November 2017 |
CASE DESCRIPTION |
In 2017, Wuhan city launched its first automated “tidal lane” with a zipper machine that can reverse the lanes in rush hour within 7 minutes. Traditionally, such operation would take more than half an hour and needed the lanes to be closed. Thus, the new measure greatly improves the efficiency of traffic and traffic police. Didi Chuxing Technology Co., and Wuhan Traffic Police worked together to conduct a scanning analysis of Wuhan’s tidal traffic and use big data to automatically select lanes that have tidal characteristics. They also separately analysed each intersection with traffic flow to see if it is tidal and each road segment to see whether it is operable for tidal lane construction. Through data mining, they quantified tidal characteristics and traffic conditions of every road to determine the end points of tidal lanes. Through these methods, Didi Chuxing conducted deep mining and analysis of more than 30 sections of roads which have tidal characteristics. It found obvious imbalances from Zhongbei Road’s Jianji Side Road to Qinyuan East Road, up to 154.48%. In particular, the intersection of Qinyuan East Road has a large volume of left turn traffic and its rush hour traffic reaches 4,000 standard cars per hour. Therefore, Wuhan’s first automated tidal lane was set at the intersection of Zhongbei Road and Qinyuan East Road. Two days after its launch, data showed that the congestion was alleviated by 30% from Zhongbei Road’s Jianji Side Road to Qinyuan East Road when tidal lane was in operation. |
CRITICAL DATA |
Before the construction of tidal lane, obvious imbalances were found from Zhongbei Road’s Jianji Side Road to Qinyuan East Road, up to 154.48%. In particular, the intersection of Qinyuan East Road has a large volume of left turn traffic and its rush hour traffic reaches 4,000 standard cars per hour. |
PROJECT-RELATED PARTIES |
N/A |
CURRENT SITUATION/PROGRESS |
The feedback from trial cities across China showed that it took only a few minutes to reverse the lanes and traffic patterns. Tidal lanes greatly improved the efficiency of traffic and traffic management. Based on the rich and high-quality big data of Didi, Wuhan’s transportation was optimized with improved efficiency. |
INNOVATION POINT |
Using automated machine to set and change tidal lanes to alleviate traffic congestion. |
RELATED LINKS |