The Utah Department of Transportation awarded Econolite a contract to install lidar-based traffic management technology from digital sensor company Ouster at 160 intersections statewide. The contract builds on a 2025 agreement with Econolite covering more than 100 intersections.
Utah aims to improve safety for vulnerable road users, which can include people walking, biking, on scooters or using wheelchairs. Ouster’s color lidar sensors can detect objects up to 500 feet away, across a 360-degree field of view, enabling real-time adjustment of traffic signals. Econolite provides the traffic control cabinets, signal controllers and related hardware and software, the company says.
“Lidar can generate real-time detection, classification and tracking of pedestrians and cyclists,” Ouster Vice President of Global ITS Solutions Asad Lesani told Smart Cities Dive.
UDOT manages over 1,300 traffic signals at freeway interchanges, along arterial roads and at intersections along state roads. In 2024, 883 crashes involving pedestrians occurred in the state, and 20% of pedestrian crashes across a six-year period resulted in fatal or serious outcomes, according to UDOT. Nearly 600 bicyclists were involved in roadway collisions in 2024, and nearly 150 people using skates, wheelchairs, scooters or other devices were involved in Utah traffic collisions.
Among the issues UDOT wants to address is the timing of pedestrian walk signals and no-turn-on-red signals. Some pedestrians walk faster than others, while others are slower than a fixed-duration signal provides. With Ouster’s traffic management system, the signal can clear sooner or remain on longer as it views the pedestrian in real time, Lesani said. The system can also clear no-turn-on-red signals if no pedestrians are detected approaching or crossing the intersection.
Lesani said Ouster has installed its traffic management systems in over 700 communities. For example, the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Center for Urban Informatics and Progress worked with Ouster to create a “smart corridor.” The 1.25-mile road through downtown Chattanooga, with 12 signalized intersections, was connected with cameras, lidar sensors and artificial intelligence for traffic management and road safety.
The Georgia Department of Transportation asked Ouster to add at least 30 installations at intersections near the downtown Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta in preparation for the World Cup matches this summer.
As for the Utah project, Lesani said, “We're planning to deliver those products in Q4” of this year.
