One of Central China’s most populous cities, Wuhan underwent rapid urban population growth reaching 10 million in 2010. Coupled with this growth was the rise in motorization. Between 2002 and 2010, the total number of private vehicles went up from 470,000 to 1.3 million. In addition to the population growth, the city area also expanded from 275km² to 440km² from 2002 to 2006, and then to 586km² in 2011. This expansion and rise in population resulted in an inevitable increase in urban infrastructure spending with investment in transportation infrastructure as a key component.
The city’s police force, traffic authority, and urban planning bureau established a Public Private Partnership (PPP) with Siemens Corporate Technology China to set up an Innovation Center in Wuhan to implement and utilize cutting-edge technology for efficient urban management.
One of the solutions they developed was a smartphone application that enabled officers of the traffic management bureau (TMB) to manually manage traffic lights in order to clear traffic and keep it moving. The approach is unique because the app synthesizes the information gathered from road sensors, networked traffic lights, and taxi drivers to inform the TMB on the traffic situation in the city.