In collaboration with the City Council of Zaragoza, the CIRCE Technology Center has developed SAFETRA, an innovative intelligent traffic light system that combines artificial intelligence and computer vision. The pilot project will be tested in the city with the aim of promoting more sustainable, efficient, and safe urban mobility and will be officially presented at the Smart City Expo World Congress 2025, which runs until November 6 in Barcelona.
Traditional traffic lights, equipped with fixed timing or manual activation, create specific problems in urban traffic management. These devices lead to unnecessary stops, increase vehicle congestion, and create unsafe situations for the most vulnerable pedestrians.
How SAFETRA Works
The system uses computer vision models and deep learning to dynamically adapt to the actual needs of pedestrians and vehicles. Through real-time local processing, SAFETRA detects and analyzes the presence of people and their intention to cross the street, automatically adjusting the traffic light phases according to demand.
Main Features:
- Detects the presence of pedestrians in the traffic light’s area of influence
- Resumes vehicle flow as soon as no pedestrians are detected
- Improves traffic flow and reduces waiting times
- Minimizes the risk of accidents
- Can operate autonomously or integrate into existing urban networks
NVIDIA-Powered Technical Architecture
SAFETRA operates on a NVIDIA Jetson device capable of continuously processing video data for 24 hours with reduced energy consumption. The system integrates the NVIDIA DeepStream SDK, which manages the entire video flow from capture to inference, simplifying deployment and enhancing scalability.
CIRCE is also exploring the integration of AI agents with state-of-the-art models, such as NVIDIA Blueprint for video search and summarization and Cosmos Reason, a vision-language model capable of understanding the visual environment through natural language. These advancements expand the capability to analyze complex situations such as crowds or atypical behaviors.
The Mayor of Zaragoza, Natalia Chueca, stated that the project reaffirms «Zaragoza’s commitment as a city open to technological innovation that improves quality of life.» For his part, Andrés Llombart, General Director of CIRCE, emphasized that «with SAFETRA, we are making a qualitative leap towards safer and more efficient mobility.»
The initiative strengthens the position of Zaragoza, recognized by the European Commission as one of the 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, as a reference in innovation and a technological hub in energy and digitalization. The implementation of SAFETRA will optimize traffic management, reduce emissions, and improve road safety, aligning with the European Green Deal and the European Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy.
