Hangzhou, Zhejiang province is tapping artificial intelligence (AI) into direct traffic, as "City Brain", a cutting-edge project that intends to solve traffic woes with the help of AI, will be put into use by the end of the year.

With 4 billion sets of data in 26 different urban management systems, the smart digital technology is expected to improve city management and provide residents with easy access to the city's data about real-time traffic, travel routes and parking lots by applying big data, AI and cloud computing.

The system helps us to improve the efficiency of traffic management, said a local official, adding that a network of surveillance cameras will be watching every vehicle on the streets before feeding it to a computing system for analysis.

Meanwhile, "City Brain" will also allow different transportation departments to share data and information resources.

In collaboration with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group and Taiwan company Foxconn, the project has been piloted in parts of the city since 2016 with positive results.

In 2005, Hangzhou became one of the first ten pilot cities in China using a smart traffic management system.

The map of Hangzhou's "City Brain" system [Photo/zjol.com.cn]