Governments around the world are making big investments aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – the primary driver of climate change. Helping cities and towns address climate change is a significant component of recently announced government spending on infrastructure, including the federal budgets in both Canada and the United States.
Transportation infrastructure is an important part of these investments because transportation contributes around a quarter of all GHG emissions. A lot of attention has been on significant new investments in public transit; however, transit is only one part of a transportation system. Many cities already have active transportation programs, making it easier for people to shift some journeys from driving to walking, cycling or scootering. Private vehicles will continue to be part of the urban transportation mix for the foreseeable future and finding ways to reduce their GHG emission is also a priority.
Miovision is proud to help our customers with their efforts to reduce the environmental impact of urban transportation. We do that in two key ways.
First of all, our products offer accurate multimodal traffic data, including data on vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles and, on our portable product (Scout), e-scooters. If part of your transportation plan includes encouraging active transportation, being able to make changes and measure the impact is critical for success.
Secondly, we can help you reduce the environmental impact of vehicular traffic. Fossil fuel vehicles emit most of their pollutants, including GHG emissions, while accelerating. That means that GHG emissions are directly correlated to fuel consumption – and if you look at fuel economy ratings, nearly all vehicles get better fuel economy on the highway (where they maintain a steady speed) than they do in the city (where there is a lot of stop-and-go traffic). Reducing the number of times drivers need to stop, then accelerate can have a measurable impact on GHG emissions – while also helping reduce traffic congestion.
Our products can help you achieve this by providing the data to optimize traffic signal timing; improving detection so that corridors with lots of traffic don’t have to needlessly stop for a cross-street with no traffic; and improving maintenance so lights don’t go to ‘flash mode’ meaning all traffic needs to either stop or yield.
How much of an impact can this have? Using methodology from the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, we estimate that Miovision can help you reduce GHG emissions by up to 200 tonnes per intersection per year. That’s the equivalent to the annual GHG emissions of nearly 44 cars for each intersection!
Helping our customers reduce their GHG emissions isn’t enough – Miovision also wants to reduce the impact our own business operations have on the environment.
That’s why we’ve become a member of an initiative, led by a local not-for-profit organization – Sustainable Waterloo Region (SWR) – that’s dedicated to helping businesses reduce their environmental footprint. Over the coming months, we’ll tap into the expertise offered through SWR to identify concrete things we can do to reduce Miovision’s carbon footprint, waste and water use.
When you see articles on climate change, it’s not unusual to see them use images of cars and trucks, stuck in traffic, idling. It’s a vivid symbol of the environmental costs of modern life. At Miovision, we want to help you fix traffic – to help eliminate the negative impacts of urban transportation. And, we’re eager to reduce our impact on the environment as well. Together, we can create a more sustainable world.