Charleston is turning to artificial intelligence to ease traffic in West Ashley.

A $705,000 grant from the Charleston Area Transportation Study will pay to retime all of the traffic signals in West Ashley using AI, Mayor William Cogswell announced at a Sept. 15 State of the City event at West Ashley High School, The Post and Courier reported.

The work builds on a pilot on Calhoun Street. A federal grant of nearly $1 million paid for AI-enabled signals at nine intersections there, which city and federal officials unveiled Feb. 19, the paper reported. The cameras use AI to monitor vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists, learn traffic patterns and adjust signal timing in real time, Cogswell said in February, according to the paper.

The city had not completed a formal study of the pilot as of the Sept. 15 event. It has until the end of November to analyze the pilot’s effects, The Post and Courier reported in August. Preliminary data from the city’s traffic and transportation department showed the technology improved how quickly cars moved through the lights by 20% to 25%, the paper reported in September.

Cogswell called it “AI in its basic form.” He said it counts cars to learn traffic patterns and sequence the lights, the paper reported. The system is different from Flock cameras, Cogswell said, and the city has said the cameras are not used for law enforcement or surveillance, the paper reported.

“This is not going to create a bot that’s going to destroy the world,” Cogswell said.

The city wants to go further. Its traffic and transportation department applied in August for about $1.8 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s ATTAIN grant program to bring the technology to eight intersections on the Septima P. Clark Parkway, known as the Crosstown, and 11 on Folly Road, according to a department memo to the mayor. Vendors would add $451,561 in in-kind work, for a project total of about $2.26 million, the memo says. City Council’s Ways and Means Committee voted Aug. 18 to approve the application after the fact, according to the committee’s minutes. No city money would be used, spokesperson Bay Sheehan told The Post and Courier. The application had not been approved as of August, the paper reported.

“Applying this technology is expected to produce similar improvements,” Sheehan said.

The traffic department is also seeking city money in 2027 to expand the technology to other parts of Charleston, according to The Post and Courier.