Calgary pours tech into traffic-congestion mitigation

The City of Calgary says it's doing a good job managing vehicular traffic congestion and it wants drivers in the city to help out by thinking ahead.

The acting traffic services manager says Calgary is leading the pack in some ways.

"We use drone technology as a tool to monitor traffic when required. We are one of the first cities in Canada to use this technology for that application. We are also the third largest city in Canada by population and, according to TomTom, an international leader in navigation technology. We rank eighth in congestion," Anthony El-Araj told reporters at a Wednesday event.

"We are performing better than cities like Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal, London and Halifax. Our congestion levels are nearly 50 per cent better than Vancouver and Toronto."

El-Araj said the city can remotely access and control 90 per cent of the more than 200 traffic cameras in Calgary. They hope to hit 100 per cent later this year or in 2026.

"In 2024 alone, we made more than 5,000 real-time signal adjustments to support 7,000 incidents and detours," the engineer said.

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He noted the city has pulled together resources to help drivers navigate around the construction-dominated summer season.

Here's the web page.

"That page includes interactive traffic maps with drive times and real-time camera feeds. We also broadcast information on 107.9 FM, the traffic advisory radio," he said.

The city's social media presence on X features real-time traffic updates, and digital message boards are placed in zones with construction and congestion.

Plan ahead

"The construction season doesn't have to be a pain, especially when you have a plan," El-Araj said.

Zi Wang is the congestion management lead with the city.

He said artificial intelligence also plays a role in mitigating congestion when certain metrics are achieved.

"We don't have a set-in-stone threshold for that. We rely on AI tools to compare it to historical travel time data. So if it is 50 per cent more congested than usual conditions, we get a notification. Then an operator looks into what happened," he explained.

"But it's not a silver bullet to cure the problem."