Thailand capital Bangkok is using artificial intelligence (AI) technology from South Korean company BlueSignal to predict traffic flows on congested roads.

BlueSignal is collaborating with Thai government agencies and local companies to supply its AI-based Navi Box CCTV technology, and develop related businesses for the country’s smart-city project.

BlueSignal visited Thailand in early December with the Kaist GCC global technology commercialisation centre, which acted as a liaison between the company and Thai government agencies and private companies related to the smart-city project. They discussed plans and strategies around the development of the technology, and established a collaboration model between the parties to enable business continuity.

With the smart-city project being a forty-three trillion won scale national project in Thailand, BlueSignal expects the collaboration to serve as a model for successful entry into the global market.

The traffic prediction technology uses two types of traffic data analysis. The first is calculating traffic congestion by predicting traffic speed or traffic volume through data analysis related to speed. The second is predicting various risk situations through video analysis technology, wherein intelligent modules predict dangerous situations that may occur in alleys and narrow roads.

This year, BlueSignal also signed a contract with Spotlight Traffic, a New Zealand company, to supply video analysis based automated traffic information gathering technology for several projects Spotlight is conducting. The video analysis technology combines multi-speed calculation of cars and object tracking through multiple angle views from a single camera. It collects real-time traffic volume and basic data for omnidirectional traffic control.

BlueSignal expects to generate one billion won in revenue annually from the project.

In addition, BlueSignal collaborated with Hamburg City Hall in Germany and Kaist GCC last year to generate forecast information to be delivered to the signal control system, by analysing local traffic big data.

The company has been involved in multiple projects in Korea as well. In October, it was awarded a 3.6bn won scale project from the National Disaster Management Research Institute, to develop optimal traffic simulation for safe evacuation in case of a disaster. Also, next year, the company will work with the city of Daejeon and the National Fire Agency to predict the optimal path for transporting within the golden time.

“After our successful venture in Germany last year, we have signed collaboration agreements with Thailand and New Zealand this year,” said Jason Baik, CEO of BlueSignal. “We are also currently engaged in discussions with various government agencies and companies from countries such as Australia, Singapore, UAE and Poland, regarding our products, so we anticipate more results to come soon.”

Since its foundation seven years ago, BlueSignal has been actively developing technology that resolves various social problems through data and video analysis and prediction. Its technology won the smart city category at the Jump Starter global start-up competition hosted by the Alibaba Entrepreneur Fund in 2019. It was also the first Korean company to be selected in the top-seven global companies at the Infinity Lab held in Singapore in 2017.