Yes, look at what happened in New Hampshire last winter with an historically extreme cold snap that caused power outages. It was so cold that many cars refused to start. If you were depending on electric heat only, you may very well die, not even able to make it to a neighbors house before dying.
Yes, and such intelligent systems can also optimize for pedestrian traffic, reducing the time waiting for a walk light, monitor bike lane usage, track dangerous intersections, improve emergency response times, prioritize buses and trams, etc. It’s good for people to be gathering this data and trying to make things better.