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Local Traffic 2 - Do you like traffic lights?
You surely know what a nuisance traffic lights can be. Some of them seem to work on the principle of: the safest thing to do, is to do nothing at all. everyone just sitting, waiting for the lights to change, but nothing happens.
No, most of the time they can't even use the excuse, that the fire-department is coming through.
Of course when speaking to the experts, they would possibly maintain that it may be because of the pedestrian crossing phases, which cannot be shortened. After all, the possibility of turning left (on the continent), in the
face of the oncoming traffic, has long since been abolished. All this waiting, just because a few globetrotters have been the cause of accidents.
Indeed, it can now be proved, just how much inefficiency can be built in to traffic light systems. The Audi company, together with it's respective partners, and within the framework of the project 'Efficiently through the city',
fitted 46 of the 130 traffic light systems in Ingolstadt, with a self-learning algorithm, the result was: One was given the green light at five crossings in a row, instead of only four. Apart from having a smaller time-delay, it was
calculated that 17% more energy was being saved.
This of course, is only the beginning. If you, e.g., on your way to work, travel the same roads every day, you are probably almost on a first name basis with each set of lights! You know exactly where you have to travel a little
faster and where higher speed makes no sense at all. It probably irritates you as well, when some technician has then been fiddling around with the timing circuits.
This, for the benefit of all, is exactly what was installed in Ingolstadt. Indeed, one doesn't need to keep an eye on the individual sets of traffic lights, they send the data to a suitably fitted car themselves, either directly per
WLAN or per UMTS through a server in the town hall.
You can see the results in the video below. Where the uninformed vehicle arrives at a red light more often, the thus informed vehicle elegantly drives through, even to the point of catching the end of the green-light phase.
Nowadays, this is what one would like to have, e.g., in the case of the automatic stop-start, which all to often, switches the engine off, just when the lights change to green.
| The red-light phase is shown in seconds ... |
At the moment, the information is given in such a way that it can be read while driving, and can give useful advice concerning the travelling speed. Only two of the test-cars are interlinked with Adaptive C
ruise Control, which, at the flick of a switch, maintains exactly the speed recommended by the system.
| The system gives a distinct warning if you're about to drive through a red light. |
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