Smart transportation helping ease traffic congestion in China

The chronic gridlock in many Chinese cities is being eased by smart transportation, according to research by a trio of tech companies.

Smart transportation refers to online map navigation, the use of big data to direct traffic, and local traffic authorities releasing information quickly via websites or social media, among other high-tech systems.

A study commissioned by bike-sharing company Mobike, Sina Weibo and Amap, an online map app with over 700 million users, looked at 100 cities nationwide last year.

It found Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou were the best for smart transportation, while Hangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Shanghai, Qingdao, Suzhou and Chongqing made up the rest of the top 10.

"Traffic departments in over 100 cities are working with Amap," said Dong Zhenning, vice-president of the company. "We will help improve traffic management and ease congestion through big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence."

Li Hongyang contributed to this story.