INNOVATION November-December 2017

F E A T U R E

The City of Surrey is the only BC municipality internationally recognized (in both 2016 and 2015) as one of the top seven intelligent communities by the Intelligent Community Forum. Because of its continually evolving state-of-the-art infrastructure, Surrey is positioned as a potential candidate for this use of UAVs. “The City of Surrey uses an in-house radio network for traffic management centre communication purposes, so the operators have access to real-time video streaming from the busiest city intersections and can remotely change signal timing plans whenever needed,” says City of Surrey Transportation Manager Jaime Boan, P.Eng. In addition, “the city aims towards city-wide replacement of existing high- pressure sodium street lighting fixtures with new LED fixtures equipped with seven-pin receptacles within five years.” Another BC municipality making changes to support advancements in technology is the City of North Vancouver. According to the City’s Transportation Manager, Dragana Mitic, P.Eng. North Vancouver recently completed citywide replacement of its old NEMA traffic signal controllers with new Advanced Transportation Controllers (ATC). As the ATCs provide open architecture hardware and software for various ITS applications, citywide use of ATCs creates the potential for combining traffic signal equipment with UAV hardware and software. In addition, the City of North

The technology for design of intelligent transportation communications systems, including UAVs as nodes, exists on the market today. However, even if such a system is built, no traffic management centre can deploy or access it at this time. Transport Canada regulations require that UAV operators maintain clear and direct sightlines with the devices at all times—UAV operators must be able to see, with their own eyes, the UAVs while the devices are in use. In the wireless mesh network system scenario described above, traffic management centre operators would be unable to keep the system’s drones within direct sight at all times. However, if changes in regulations occur in the future, the scenario described above could easily move from hypothetical into reality, opening the door to using UAVs for intelligent transportation purposes. In such circumstances, UAVs would present a feasible solution to significantly increase traffic management centre communication network redundancy. Potential for UAVs in BC’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Even though years may pass before we see drones flying legally over busy roads as components of intelligent transportation systems in BC, some municipalities already possess infrastructure that is sufficiently intelligent to support the addition of UAVs as nodes of mesh networks.

Vancouver has developed an in-house communication network by combining a fibre optic system with a radio network to enable communication between the City’s staff and traffic signals. The City of North Vancouver also requires all new LED street lighting fixtures to have seven-pin receptacles that can be used to support radio communications. Combined with the existing traffic management centre communication networks in Surrey and North Vancouver, these BC municipalities could, in theory, use UAVs as nodes within an intelligent mesh network— should regulatory conditions in the future permit. j Kliment Kuzmanovski, P.Eng., is a traffic engineer with the City of North Vancouver, with experience in intelligent transportation systems, traffic signals and street lighting systems design, and traffic flow simulation.

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