Intelligent Transportation System: Managing Pandemic Induced Threats to the People and Economy

Abstract

Since the world wars, the world has not seen such a heavy and sustained negative impact on the people and economy, as is being caused by the pandemic COVID-19. Pandemic, like any other big change, is strongly disruptive, challenging authorities all over the world to reimagine services, logistics, people movement, and economic activities. For the national and local governments looking for resources to support traditional and novel solutions to mitigate, contain and control the pandemic's deleterious impact on the people and economy, Smart City's Intelligent Transportation System (SC-ITS) can be an important asset. Integration of the transportation advancements with artificial intelligence and information and communication technologies is interactively and dynamically empowering the ITS of Smart Cities. This integration has ushered in an era of smart city intelligent transportation services that are dynamic, adaptive and can be reconfigured to meet the smart city citizenry's changing needs in an inclusive, safe, greener, and more efficient way. We believe that by adapting and, in some cases repurposing the SC-ITS, the authorities can simultaneously increase the reach, impact, and efficacy of the solutions aimed at restarting economies while balancing both lives and livelihood concerns. This paper builds an understanding of the pandemic and then examines the SC-ITS through its components and related applications before diving deeper into the hood to examine how these components, both now and in the future, can be adapted, reconfigured and repurposed, to address the pandemic induced challenges individually and collectively. Finally, it attempts to put a perspective by evaluating the challenges and opportunities inherent in leveraging the ITS for the deployment.