Toyota Teams with Turing Institute on Smart Cities

Toyota Motor Corp. is partnering with the U.K.’s Alan Turing Institute to use artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies to better coordinate and improve urban transportation.

The 18-month program aims to transform the way cities are planned and managed, with an initial focus on London. The carmaker’s Toyota Mobility Foundation and Turing researchers will work with various government agencies, data providers, tech companies and other experts to optimize traffic flow, reduce pollution and improve transportation access to underserved areas and people.

Among the program’s goals are to integrate an AI system for traffic lights and develop a platform for interactive data manipulation to monitor and predict traffic behavior. The partners also are developing ways for fleet operators, city planners and transportation agencies to share data about congestion and reroute traffic across various mobility systems in real time.

Named after famed British scientist Alan Turing, the Turing Institute works with industry partners to apply advanced mathematics, data science and artificial intelligence to real world issues. Researchers use computer modeling and machine learning to quickly identify and test various scenarios.