The City of Gothenburg, Sweden, is developing a new frontier of safer streets: geofencing. It recently partnered with Volvo to create virtual perimeters that digitally control public buses. In zones around schools, the buses automatically slow down. And in emissions-free zones where air quality is tightly regulated, hybrid buses automatically switch to use electric power to reduce carbon emissions. The city hopes to make geofencing for public buses permanent. “In a truly sustainable city, people are not severely injured or killed in traffic,” says Suzanne Andersson of Gothenburg’s Urban Transport Administration.
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