Detroit Tests Cloud-Based Green Lights for Fire Engines

Detroit Tests Cloud-Based Green Lights for Fire Engines

Detroit is testing whether existing connected-vehicle and traffic-signal infrastructure can clear intersections for fire engines before they arrive, without adding another layer of roadside or vehicle hardware.

A 90-day pilot in the city’s Corktown district connects selected Detroit Fire Department vehicles with five signalised intersections through Miovision’s Opticom Cloud Emergency Vehicle Preemption platform and HAAS Alert’s Safety Cloud. The project will examine whether connected signals can reduce intersection delays, improve firefighter safety and make emergency response more efficient.

Instead of a fire appliance reaching a red signal and relying on lights, sirens and surrounding drivers to create a safe route through the junction, its location is communicated ahead of its arrival. The traffic controller can then sequence the signals to provide a green phase on the vehicle’s approach while holding conflicting traffic.

What makes the Detroit trial more interesting is how little additional physical infrastructure is involved. Participating fire vehicles already use HAAS Alert equipment, while the traffic signals are connected through Miovision’s platform, allowing the pilot to test a software-led route towards emergency vehicle preemption rather than treating it primarily as another roadside hardware programme. The supplied material states that no new in-vehicle or roadside hardware is required.

Briefing

• Detroit is running a 90-day emergency vehicle preemption pilot in Corktown.
• Five signalised intersections and selected Detroit Fire Department vehicles are involved.
• Vehicle location data from HAAS Alert is passed to Miovision’s cloud platform to request signal preemption.
• The system attempts to provide a green phase before the emergency vehicle reaches each intersection.
• Detroit will use the trial to evaluate response times, intersection delays, safety and the potential for wider deployment.

Clearing the Junction Before the Fire Engine Arrives

Emergency vehicle preemption is not a new concept. Opticom itself has roots in decades of traffic-signal priority technology, including infrared systems in which vehicle-mounted emitters communicate with detectors installed at intersections. Miovision now supports infrared, GPS and cloud-connected implementations within the same platform.

Cloud connectivity changes the way that infrastructure can be deployed because a dedicated line-of-sight connection is no longer necessarily required between every emergency vehicle and every participating intersection. Position information can instead pass through existing connected fleet systems and telecommunications networks, allowing the traffic controller to receive an approaching vehicle’s preemption request before it reaches the junction.

In Detroit, location data from equipped fire vehicles travels through HAAS Alert’s system to MiovisionOne, which sends a preemption request to the traffic controller. Miovision describes the underlying sequence as “detect, request, clear, resume”: the approaching vehicle is identified, priority is requested, the appropriate signal phase is provided and normal signal operation resumes once the vehicle has passed.

For cities already operating connected traffic controllers and emergency fleets carrying compatible telematics equipment, that architecture creates the possibility of adding preemption without replacing vehicle equipment across an entire fleet. Miovision’s cloud deployment can integrate with systems including HAAS Alert, Whelen and Samsara.

Miovision and HAAS Alert announced their expanded integration in December 2025, with Martin, Tennessee becoming the first deployment of the joint cloud-based EVP system using existing Safety Cloud-connected emergency vehicles. Detroit therefore provides another operating environment for technology that has already moved beyond the demonstration stage.

A Five-Intersection Test in Corktown

The Detroit pilot is deliberately contained, with five intersections providing a manageable network in which the city can examine what happens as emergency vehicles move through successive signals rather than evaluating preemption at a single isolated junction.

The test sits within Detroit’s Transportation Innovation Zone, a roughly two-square-mile area around Michigan Central covering Corktown, North Corktown and Hubbard Richard. The city established the zone as a regulated environment where mobility technologies can be deployed and evaluated under real urban conditions, making it a natural setting for a system whose performance depends as much on ordinary traffic as it does on software and communications.

A live demonstration was held on 17 September, with two equipped Detroit Fire Department vehicles travelling through the pilot area at five-minute intervals, according to material supplied for the project.

Signal preemption has to do considerably more than turn a traffic light green. Controllers need sufficient warning to terminate or modify existing phases safely, provide clearance intervals and manage conflicting approaches before giving the emergency vehicle priority. Once it has passed, the intersection must recover towards its normal signal plan, while multiple emergency vehicles can introduce competing priority requests. Miovision says Opticom manages those requests according to vehicle type and signal state rather than treating each independently.

Measuring the Claims

Miovision cites improvements of up to 25% in emergency response times and reductions of up to 70% in intersection crash rates for Opticom deployments. Those figures are presented by the company as performance benchmarks for its wider platform rather than results from the Detroit pilot, which is still an evaluation.

Five intersections cannot establish what a city-wide network would deliver, particularly when emergency routes, traffic volumes, signal spacing and congestion vary substantially across an urban area. More useful evidence will come from comparing actual journeys through the pilot corridor, including time saved at signals, reliability of preemption requests, disruption to other road users and how quickly intersections recover after an emergency vehicle passes.

There is also a difference between shaving seconds from individual junctions and reducing an end-to-end emergency response time. A fire engine encounters many potential sources of delay between its station and an incident, so the Corktown trial should provide a clearer indication of how much intersection preemption contributes within the complete journey rather than simply recording whether a green signal was successfully provided.

The technology nevertheless addresses a clearly defined source of delay: the point where a fast-moving emergency vehicle meets traffic travelling across its path.

“When fire trucks can move through intersections without stopping, entire communities benefit from faster, safer emergency response,” said Kurtis McBride, CEO of Miovision. “Thanks to the Detroit Fire Department, we’re proving that cloud-based preemption is deployable without costly new infrastructure and scalable to cities of any size.”

From Pilot Corridor to City Network

Detroit’s approach also shows how connected infrastructure can alter the economics of intelligent transport systems. Traditional deployments frequently involve dedicated roadside devices, vehicle equipment and communications infrastructure, whereas cloud integrations can allow equipment installed for one purpose to perform another function.

The physical infrastructure does not disappear. Traffic controllers still have to support the required operations, communications must be sufficiently reliable and secure, vehicle positioning needs to be accurate, and the system has to work predictably when normal traffic conditions become abnormal. What changes is the amount of dedicated equipment that may need to be installed solely for emergency preemption.

Detroit’s Transportation Innovation Zone was created partly to resolve the awkward gap between promising mobility technology and deployment on public streets. Rather than relying on lengthy individual agreements for every experiment, the city developed a permitting framework through its Office of Mobility Innovation for controlled real-world trials.

Emergency vehicle preemption fits neatly into that model because its value cannot be established convincingly in a laboratory. It needs real signals, actual fire appliances, ordinary motorists and the unpredictable traffic conditions of a working city.

“The Detroit Fire Department is always looking for ways to make our streets safer and get help to people faster,” said Chuck Simms, Executive Fire Commissioner, Detroit Fire Department. “That’s why we’re excited to be part of this pilot with Miovision and HAAS Alert. Technology like this has real potential to help our firefighters and EMS crews get where they’re needed faster and, ultimately, improve outcomes for the residents we serve.”

If the Corktown data supports wider deployment, the next challenge becomes scale. Five connected intersections can demonstrate whether the communications chain works, but hundreds across a city introduce different controllers, communications networks, road geometries, traffic conditions and maintenance requirements.

Cloud-based preemption could simplify the route into that larger network where cities are able to reuse equipment already installed for other purposes. Detroit’s 90-day pilot should provide some evidence of how well that proposition survives contact with everyday traffic.

Key Industry Questions

1. What is emergency vehicle preemption? It allows a traffic signal to alter its normal sequence to give priority to an approaching authorised emergency vehicle while controlling conflicting traffic movements.
2. How does Detroit’s system know that a fire engine is approaching? Location information from participating vehicles is transmitted through HAAS Alert’s connected system to Miovision’s cloud platform, which can request preemption from participating traffic controllers.
3. Does Detroit need new equipment on every participating fire engine? The pilot uses HAAS Alert equipment already installed on participating vehicles, according to the supplied project material.
4. How many intersections are involved? Five signalised intersections within Detroit’s Transportation Innovation Zone are participating in the 90-day pilot.
5. Does emergency preemption simply change a red signal immediately to green? No. The controller has to manage the existing signal sequence and conflicting traffic safely before providing the requested priority phase.
6. Are the claimed 25% response-time and 70% crash reductions Detroit results? No. They are performance figures cited by Miovision for Opticom more generally. Detroit’s pilot is intended to evaluate performance locally.
7. Can cloud preemption work alongside older systems? Miovision says Opticom supports cloud, GPS and infrared technologies in hybrid deployments, allowing agencies to retain compatible existing infrastructure while modernising parts of the network.
8. Could the Detroit system be expanded city-wide? Technically that is the longer-term possibility, but the current project covers only five intersections. Wider deployment would depend on the results of the pilot and subsequent decisions by the city.

Strategic Takeaways

1. Reusing existing vehicle connectivity could lower one of the practical barriers to deploying emergency vehicle preemption across established fleets.
2. Cloud-based EVP shifts part of the investment from dedicated roadside and vehicle hardware towards communications, software integration and traffic-controller compatibility.
3. Corridor performance matters more than isolated intersection performance when assessing whether preemption materially reduces total response times.
4. Detroit’s five-intersection deployment should be treated as an evaluation rather than evidence of city-wide performance.
5. Hybrid support for cloud, GPS and infrared systems gives authorities a potential migration path rather than requiring wholesale replacement of legacy preemption equipment.