Traffic lights in Georgetown will soon respond to real-time traffic conditions rather than fixed timing schedules, President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali announced at a press conference on Friday.
Speaking at length about Guyana’s national security infrastructure plans, the president said sensor- enabled lights will be installed in the city as part of a broader intelligent traffic system being developed ahead of 2030.
“Based on what the traffic is looking like, how the sensors are reading the traffic, the timing of the lights will change to allow efficiency in the system. It is not one time that is fixed,” President Ali explained.
He told reporters that the sensors will factor in the direction of traffic flow at any given time, whether vehicles are heading into or out of the city and adjust accordingly.
The sensor-enabled traffic lights form part of a wider intelligent traffic system, and the government intends to integrate them with its existing CCTV and Safe Country camera network.
President Ali said the country has already seen results from smart traffic cameras already deployed, noting a significant reduction in speeding and accidents in areas where those cameras are active.
He added that the system has advanced further, with artificial intelligence now capable of generating instant reports on repeat traffic offenders, information that can be fed directly into the judicial system for action.
A mobile traffic enforcement unit has also been piloted, with the president noting that during a recent test run along the East Coast, the system identified more than 250 vehicles with outstanding traffic tickets with no room for human interference.
“The system would pick them up, document it on a screen, put it in a database, and then turn on the sirens to stop the vehicle,” he explained.
The government plans to scale this mobile unit nationally, alongside the rollout of the sensor-enabled infrastructure.