Our lady of the traffic, I call her. Driving around Kinshasa – capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo – I like to slow down at the roundabout to take a snap of her at work, managing the crazy traffic flows.
The “traffic robot” blends the job of traffic lights with that of a human traffic cop. She both controls and monitors traffic flow. The first two traffic robots were introduced to Kinshasa’s chaotic traffic in 2013. Three more have recently been added.
For this writer, the robot is female, not because of her form, but because I know it’s a woman who invented her. Therese Izay is the engineer who created these robots, through her organisation Women’s Tech.
Each robot is about eight foot tall. Her arms swivel, and she has red and green lights on her hands, and more on her chest. She is solar-powered, with small video cameras built into her eyes.
I recently returned from an 18-month stint in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kinshasa’s city centre is made up of broad, elegant boulevards. Most “Kinois” (residents of Kinshasa) travel into the city on vans that have been converted into buses. These are known locally as “les esprits de mort”, or “spirits of death”. They duck and dive through the traffic with people hanging out the windows and out the back; accidents are frequent, as their nickname implies.
The robots have become part of the landscape of the city of Kinshasa, with remarkably more success at managing Congolese drivers than the traffic police stationed at other intersections, sweating and red in the face under their tin helmets, blowing their whistles in vain at anarchic drivers.
People are often surprised to hear about the ground-breaking use of traffic robots in a country not known for technological innovation. But they are working so well that Izay hopes to export them to other parts of the world.
