Recently, the North Carolina State University, United States, published a study in which it proposes adding a fourth color to the traffic light, which would have the function of indicating drivers to follow the car in front of them through an intersection. Well, Google goes further and intends to use Artificial Intelligence as well as data and trends from Google Maps to improve traffic lights.
Through Google Research’s “Project Green Light”, they seek to model traffic patterns and create intelligent recommendations so that the city’s traffic engineers can optimize the flow of mobility.
If you’re wondering how it works, through The data that the technology company has with city mapping can infer the existing parameters of traffic lights such as:
- Cycle time
- Transition time
- Green light times
- Coordination
- Sensor operation
From this information, develop a model to understand how traffic flows through an intersection and identify possible adjustments through AI, which would help the city’s traffic engineers to review the recommendations, approve them and be able to easily implement them in just 5 minutes, using the existing policies and tools in the city.
As you can see, Google wants to optimize the traffic light cycle, as the time passes from the change of a traffic light group to the repetition of the same situation, in a complete maneuver sequence in traffic lights connected to the same regulator. Each of the traffic light cycles is divided into phases, during which the color configuration of all groups remains unchanged (the phase for a traffic light would be red, green and amber, the latter being the new color to be implemented).
The cycle distribution It is the way in which the time of a cycle is distributed in all the phases associated with an intersection, and to determine the duration the psychology of the driver is taken into account, according to which, Cycles shorter than 35 seconds or longer than 150 seconds are difficult to accommodate the mentality of road users.
Generally, in the distribution of the cycle we look for obtain as short a cycle as possible to reduce waiting timesand also takes into account the road safety in specific situations like the schedule, although some traffic lights are not synchronized at night to prevent driving at high speeds.
The Green Light initiative is operating in 12 cities – Abu Dhabi, Bali, Bangalore, Budapest, Haifa, Hamburg, Hyderabad, Jakarta, Kolkata, Manchester, Rio de Janeiro and Seattle – and according to the first figures revealed by the company, there is a potential reduction of up to 30% in shutdowns and 10% in greenhouse gas emissions.
