Avoiding Red Lights By Booking Ahead 299
RedEaredSlider writes "Peter Stone, associate professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, has presented an idea at the AAAS meeting today for managing intersections: a computer in a car calls ahead to the nearest intersection it is headed towards, and says it will arrive at a given time. The intersection checks to see if anyone else is arriving then, and if the slot is open, it tells the car to proceed. If it isn't, it tells the car that the car remains responsible for slowing down or stopping. He says that even with only a few connected cars, the system still works, even if the benefits are still only to those who have the connected vehicles."
What happens when people change their minds.. (Score:5, Interesting)
...before arriving at the light? How far ahead are they "booking" a slot? How long until the slot becomes available if the car with the reservation isn't going to arrive. This really only sounds useful in more rural areas. I can't see a city with lights on every block being able to implement this technology with any kind of efficiency.
Re:What happens when people change their minds.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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This sort of tech is all precursor to auto drive cars.
Even before that, you can get excellent features like a heads up display that will tell you how fast to drive to hit all the lights green. "You are driving 43MPH. Accelerate to 47MPH and you will reach the intersection before the other car and the light will be green" etc.
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I'd never get a ticket there - because I drive the speed limit. The only reason the gold mine exists is because people are stupid, not because of the calibration of the lights.
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I'd never get a ticket there - because I drive the speed limit. The only reason the gold mine exists is because people are stupid, not because of the calibration of the lights.
This,
In the (Australian) state I live in, 75% of revenue from speed cameras goes to the Road Trauma Trust Fund, which is used to build and maintain roads. Realistically that money has to come from somewhere otherwise roads end up in disrepair, if not fines then it will end up coming out of tax. So speed camera's are not revenue raisers as much as tax minimisation for people smart enough not to speed.
As of July this year, that number goes from 75% to 100%
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This sort of tech is all precursor to auto drive cars.
Not it's not. Auto driving cars would need to be able to coexist with normal cars and normal infrastructure before they could be widely used, so something like this is distinctly not a precursor.
In addition, if the cars couldn't drive in normal traffic themselves, then someone would be able to hack the signal and tell every car approaching the intersection that they don't have to stop. Unless the car is still able to see the status of the light and the status of the cross traffic, this is too dangerous t
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What kind of non-rural area do you live in where there's no traffic? Even at 4 a.m. there's some cars moving around.
Plus, don't most lights go to flashing yellow (= 4 way stop) at off-peak times?
But the simplest solution is some kind of directional light sensor that picks up headlights of approaching vehicles.
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What kind of non-rural area do you live in where there's no traffic?
North Atlanta, and, yes, there are side streets where there's only traffic in rush hour but pretty dead on the off-times. And, of course, because of the spike in traffic, there needs to be traffic lights. Unfortunately, they were built decades ago and not improved upon since then, so most are just on timers, which means that you just sit there until the light cycles.
Plus, don't most lights go to flashing yellow (= 4 way stop) at off-peak times?
Not the light right where I live. It never goes to flashing yellow. I typically spend 2-3 minutes at that light to turn left anytime I decide t
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I also am used to loops in the road as traffic sensors.
And I laugh every time i see some idiot stopped 1 or 2 car lengths back from the stop line, way back from the sensor loop wondering why the lights don't change for them.
I still wonder what is their reasoning for stopping so far back, but I don't think reason has anything to do with it ............
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I believe most city traffic lights are now connected to "central planning" systems that do things like synchronize inbound flows in the morning and outbound in the evening, and create green light corridors for presidential motorcades (I know Miami did this in 1987 when I worked at DOT...)
I'm surprised nobody has raised the privacy flag, if you're "booking ahead" with a series of traffic lights, you'd better not be "booking" down the road over the speed limit, or you're effectively signing a confession.
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I dropped by to voice the same concern but you beat me to it. What indeed happens when one of the other monitored cars has an impulsive driver who decides in the last few seconds before the intersection to floor the accelerator?
Traffic lights would still operate, and traffic rules would still apply. What would happen in your case: If the driver goes at constant speed, the traffic light changes at exactly the right time to let him through. If the driver accelerates, the traffic light doesn't change to green in time, so he has to break. Or get a red light ticket.
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I dropped by to voice the same concern but you beat me to it. What indeed happens when one of the other monitored cars has an impulsive driver who decides in the last few seconds before the intersection to floor the accelerator?
Sorry... FAIL. This system will ONLY work if we remove humans as a variable in the equation.
How is is any different than what happens now? Right now, when when a driver faces a red light and decides to floor the accelerator, hopefully he'll get a redlight ticket, but if another car is legally in the intersection he'll t-bone that driver. Many cities already have synchronized lights to give drivers following the speed limit a green light by the time they get to the next intersection. This system just changes the synchronization to individual cars.
If drivers obey the red lights (just as they are req
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This is yet another example of a solution looking for a problem. You don't need transponders calling ahead.
London has had, since almost forever, a system composed of cameras and humans. When the humans observe congestion they frig the timing on the lights to favour those moving out of it and hinder those moving in.
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London has had, since almost forever, a system composed of cameras and humans.
Yes and with this you don't need either, which saves money and allows you to extend the system to areas that aren't as dense as London.
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Re:What happens when people change their minds.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry... FAIL. This system will ONLY work if we remove humans as a variable in the equation.
Seriously? FAIL? You find one particular scenario where it would provide optimal performance and somehow this means the system has failed? So what is your solution then? Do not implement a system that would make traffic flow better in 90% of cases just because the 10% would not be improved?
<RANT> /. on stories about inventions. People either dismiss it because of one edge case (like now), or they will say that they personally do not need the technology so it should not be implemented. Myself, I use public transport more often than I drive but that doesn't mean that I think we should not improve traffic flow for cars. To do so would be amazingly self-centered.
It is a curious reaction that we often see on
</RANT>
As to your particular concern, we are in the process of removing humans as a variable. Even ignoring the work being done on auto-driving cars, how many cars do you see with navigation systems in them these days. Sure, you don't input your destination into these every time if you know where you are going, but would you do so if it meant that you were more likely to get a dream run of green traffic lights?
Re:What happens when people change their minds.. (Score:5, Funny)
Good rant, but a few nitpicks:
1. No, the usage of 'fail' was entirely appropriate.
Defined by popular usage, FAIL means "there was a slight incongruity between what was promised and what was delivered, and by the way, I'm slightly retarded." (For comparison, EPIC FAIL is the same as FAIL, with the addendum, 'and I shat myself.')
If the speaker had meant to imply that the system really didn't perform, he would have written that it performs "literally."
2. If you ask one thousand experts about your great idea, you'll find that 990 of them aren't experts, 9 of the 10 remaining will only tell you all the ways it can't work, and the last guy will try to steal your idea.
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Your post, Sir, assumes that we people in rural areas actually obey traffic signals. Especially during non-peak hours (I've never observed vehicles blowing red lights @ 3 a.m. down my street).
With this design on a low traffic road, there should be just two possibilities: 1. You arrive at the traffic light, and the traffic light is green and no traffic from the other sides. 2. You arrive at the traffic light, the traffic light is red, and there _is_ traffic from the other sides. In other words, the light is very rarely red, but if it is red, then you absolutely _must_ stop or there will be an accident.
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In a low traffic environment it would likely be easier for the 'side' street to have a trigger that tells the light to go to green if there isn't traffic in the 'main' street. Just like we have now (mostly). The only advantage this system would give you is the ability to tell the light to go green earlier, thus letting the side street vehicle go without having to stop, saving some fuel and some time.
At the expense of safety - making the side street vehicle stop even briefly before going green allows the d
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but the trigger usually requires you to stop at the light. Also you seem to forget that rural lights at night can have a several minute wait on the "low-priority" side
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Roundabouts (Score:2, Interesting)
Or you could just go with the simple solution and use roundabouts.
Re:Roundabouts (Score:5, Funny)
Tell that to the people in my neighbourhood who don't have a clue how to deal with a roundabout.
Re:Roundabouts (Score:4, Funny)
Scary, isn't it. We had a roundabout put in one of our major intersections about a year ago (to much wailing and rending of garments). Perhaps 90% of drivers picked it up in the first few weeks. The other 10%, well, all I can say it's a shame that speeds are so low that we'll never get rid of them via traffic accidents. We just have to find some better way.
Nobody really liked my idea of putting forks in some power outlets to see who would pull them out.
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I honestly don't know what it is about roundabouts, but in my experience in Canada (BC) and US (WA), it seems that most people in neither of those places know how to deal with them. The usual mode of operation is "signals? what signals?".
I mean, seriously, is it so hard to at least signal when you're going to leave the damn things? Or to figure out that you have to do so, same as any other turn?
FWIW, I also do see quite a few people who don't seem to understand "give way to traffic in the circle" either. I
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Or you could just go with the simple solution and use roundabouts.
The simple solution isn't that simple when you take the time to actually look at a map sometime. (Go ahead, try it, we will wait...) [google.com]
Rebuilding every intersection that has stoplights to have roundabouts doesn't work, and can't be afforded, even in those countries where roundabouts are common. Oh, wait, that would be NOWHERE. Even in the EU where everyone sings the praises of Roundabouts they are RARE.
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Half of all the roundabouts in the world are in France.
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Roundabouts are extremely common here in Portugal. One of our cities has alone 35 of them. I doubt there are many places where you can drive 20km without going through one.
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Compared to Stop Signaled intersections? Check your facts.
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What's a stop signal? A traffic light or a metal sign?
Either way, not as numerous as "stop signals" is not the same thing as rare. In a UK city there will be hundreds of roundabouts.
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What's a stop signal? A traffic light or a metal sign?
Either way, not as numerous as "stop signals" is not the same thing as rare. In a UK city there will be hundreds of roundabouts.
Hmmm
It depends on the size of the city, though it should be noted that we also have Roundabouts with Traffic Lights that control entry and exit from them...
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"Rare" is by definition a relative term.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rare [oxforddictionaries.com]
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And it doesn't apply to roundabouts in Europe. If you think it does, then you don't know Europe.
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Now go to street view. I bet you can count 200 signaled stop lights in those same maps.
Lets face it. Traffic circles are only used in a tiny percentage of all intersections,
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You're just making it even more obvious you don't know what you're talking about. Traffic circles are not the same thing as roundabouts.
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Now go to street view. I bet you can count 200 signaled stop lights in those same maps.
This seems very unlikely in the Basingstoke example. In one mile of Oakridge Road there are twenty "intersections" between two roundabouts, but in every case the side road is a "Yield" ("Give Way" in UK terms). The only stop light you will see is actually on the easternmost roundabout. If you'd like another example of the relative numbers of traffic light intersections and roundabouts in the UK, try 300 Carmarthen Road, Swansea, to Maplin Electronics, Llanelli. There are 12 roundabouts (especially common in
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One source [teachamerica.com] says there are less then 1200 roundabouts in the UK.
Another source [dailymail.co.uk] says there are more than 25000 traffic lights in the UK.
Re:Roundabouts (Score:5, Informative)
One source says there are less then 1200 roundabouts in the UK.
A slide in some American organisation's powerpoint presentation. It's ridiculously wrong.
There are 66 cities in the UK. That figure would mean just 18 roundabouts per city. If you forgot about all of the ones on the motorways and A roads in the countryside and towns. Which anyone who knows the UK can see is stupidly low.
Heck Milton Keynes alone has around 300 roundabouts, and thats only a town, not a city.
There doesn't appear to be any count of the number of roundabouts in the UK. There are far too many to count.
There's not really any reason to second guess why that powerpoint slide has it so wrong. But just for the hell of it... I guess they asked the UK Highways Agency. Which only maintains motorways and major trunk roads. Most roads and therefore roundabouts are under the jurisdiction of local councils. It's kind of like the difference between the US federal government and individual states and counties.
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People gripe about how hard roundabouts are to use, and I don't see it at all. Maybe it helps that the local ones were laid out intelligently so there's obviously only one way to go in - the entrances are canted to the right so that even the biggest idiot doesn't try to enter to the left.
It was a rare bit of sanity from MoDOT.
Already implemented here (Score:5, Insightful)
There are induction loops (metal dectors) buried in the pavement that tell the traffic lights about approaching cars. When my car passes over the loop it is telling the traffic signal at the intersection that I will be arriving within 10 seconds. If there is no cross traffic the light tells me to proceed by changing to green (or remaining green).
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Yeah, that works at like 3% of intersections in most big cities. The older the city, the less likely it is that you will find this. They may have the loops, but that doesn't always mean they will alter the clock for you. I've sat on loops with ZERO traffic coming from any direction and had the signals march thru their normal pattern. In many places the loops actually do nothing.
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Oh, they do something... just not at the time of day that you're driving. Try driving at three or four in the morning some time, and you'll see just how well those sensors work.
What this professor proposes is basically a massively scaled-down version of what I've been proposing for years. Unfortunately, that scaled-down nature of the proposal makes it a lot less useful in practice. To do traffic optimization well, you really need automated vehicles so that people register their destinations with a centra
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Sorry, but nothing could ever go wrong with such a system, could it?
If you haven't read about the Denver Airport baggage handling system, you should.
I'm confident that I could design a working system such as you are describing, or the Denver baggage system for that matter, if I were "king of the project" and everybody had the good sense to do as I told them to. But, massively expensive projects like those inevitably suffer political pressures and I don't think I would even accept the position of lead desig
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The problem's not that the loops aren't used, it's that the lights were designed with specific restrictions in addition to the induction loops.
One of the intersections I pass through twice every day is an excellent example: it's a T-junction with the top of the T being a big boulevard whereas the vertical line is just a side-street. The lights are programmed so that they will only switch for the vertical when there's somebody waiting there. However, in addition to this, the lights also have an integrated ti
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Re:Already implemented here (Score:4, Informative)
And they often don't detect motorcycles so you stand at a red light for a few minutes without crosstraffic until you decide to go ahead against the red light.
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The inductive loops are actually sensitive to *moving* iron, so if you're stuck waiting, try backing up and driving over it again. I could actually set one of those loops off with my bicycle if I rode over it at just the right place and speed, if my approach was too slow, it would never work.
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Tape a magnet to the bottom of it. I'm serious.
http://www.wikihow.com/Trigger-Green-Traffic-Lights [wikihow.com]
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With a minor upgrade recently that checks your speed and if you driving over speed limit it puts there red light right in front of you. Great for ecology, traffic fluence, safety... you name it!
Certainly they aren't doing this for the environment. Stopped, idling vehicles generate more pollution in cities than moving vehicles. Sounds like a municipality that has nothing better to do with its time than to annoy some of their civilians.
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Not all central planning traffic control systems are programmed to make your commute go more smoothly. I believe in my county the DOT has made "misery for motorists" a top priority- projects like rebuilding heavily trafficked roads to REDUCE the number of lanes, projects that cut major arteries for months at a time. I don't know if they expect us to take public transit, or just get jobs in other cities, since public transit becomes an unusable joke about 2 miles out of the center of town.
I've been doing this for years (Score:5, Insightful)
Any time you are driving on surface streets (hate that term), you soon learn to "drive the stop-lights" by looking ahead a block or two. Its
not that hard, and even when you can't see the lights driving just about the speed limit will be close enough to get you 5 greens out of 6 tries.
That being said, anything that can guarantee more greens is welcome, but putting it in cars seems the wrong approach. If the stop lights just
talked to each other you would have enough info. When Stoplight A can't clear its queue in the allotted green, you can pretty much bet stoplight B won't be able to do so when that slug of cars reaches it.
In most cases the problem is dumb signals, hold overs from the Pleistocene, with no attempt to make traffic efficient.
Re:I've been doing this for years (Score:5, Funny)
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+1 funny dude
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You're assuming traffic lights are designed with fluidity in mind. Unfortunately many cities seem to design them with inefficiency in mind, going as far as to make sure that lights are always negations of the previous one so that you continuously have to start and stop -- supposedly to "slow traffic down".
Car? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not just use smart phones it'd be just as simple to attach the correct sensor or it may be able to use the gps most of them already have.
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I don't think the smartphone exists that has both a GPS reliable enough for this and a battery that allows it to be on all the time. I will buy that phone when it does exist.
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I wasn't sure if the GPS was reliable enough thats why I used the word "may". You could simply plug it into a car charger for the battery issue.
arduino transmitter time (Score:2)
Green lights all the way with my greenlightduino.
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http://www.themirt.com/ [themirt.com]
They ^^^ actually work, if you're stupid enough to use them.
Yes! (Score:3)
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Yes! It is the year 2012, and our traffic lights are still running on timers. They're stupid, they waste time and fuel needlessly... they need to go. We have computers that can understand the spoken word, read the written word, and do whatever the hell it is that Kinect does. Our traffic semaphores should be far more intelligent than they are. I think I'd prefer something more along the lines of computer vision than and RF announcement -- for privacy reasons, but at least there's technology in the works.
Or, as someone suggested up above, you could just rip them out and install roundabouts.
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Or, as someone suggested up above, you could just rip them out and install roundabouts.
Ah yes, "just" rip out a working system for something inefficient at the best of times. Why aren't you in government, calling the shots?
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The system works as well as it's ever going to because if you start dicking around with the lights for smart vehicles then it messes with the perceptions of the other drivers, and meanwhile, the solution is self-driving cars, which we have already, and it's called trains. (Or in between, PRT.)
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Ah yes, "just" rip out a working system for something inefficient at the best of times. Why aren't you in government, calling the shots?
Uh, so you think we should add a complex computer control system to every traffic light rather than rip it out and put a pile of dirt in the middle of the road for people to drive around?
Heck, you don't even need that, a lot of British roundabouts are just a painted circle on the road.
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And this is all about improving the system of sensors, putting the initial triggering devices in to vehicles, and not into the roads themselves.
putting a sensor loop in to a road is not difficult, but does mean shutting down the road for a period of time and employing a number of people to install and test it, and reinstall if it doesn't work right the first time.
and to minimise inconvenience to raod users it is often done at night (with additional costs of extra energy for work lights etc and of course ove
Benefits to connected vehicles? Sure. (Score:3)
But it would seem like the unconnected vehicles - which would probably be the vast majority of traffic around these lights - would be impacted adversely. It's not as if it's a situation where connected vehicles benefit while the impact to others is neutral.
This just seems like another concept designed to benefit a privileged few at the expense of the unwashed masses.
Fails if many people do it. (Score:2)
Misunderstood headline (Score:2)
A possible improvement (Score:5, Insightful)
If the light doesn't have a slot knows there will be one available just a bit later, the light can signal the car to coast down from 45MPH to 35MPH, arriving just a bit later. By doing so it reduces the energy lost into the brakes and the car ends up coasting through the intersection on the green light instead of stopping and then having to restart just a few seconds later.
You can do this manually by paying attention to what's going on in the next several stoplights. It saves gas and brake wear. It's kind of nice just cruising along and hitting all the lights. Getting feedback from the light would make it much more effective.
Unfortunately it also drives some drivers crazy. They can't stand it that I'm going 35MPH in a 45MPH zone and go racing past... Just to end up stopped at a stoplight which then turns green a few seconds later and I go drifting on past. And still they don't get it.
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Sometimes you have two of those morons and one changes into your lane, forcing you to stop. Happens to me all the time.
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In Thailand, Many intersections have a large clock indicating how long is left for the green light and then how long for the red light, It seems to work pretty well, if this was combined with a remote sensor system (the clock kicks in when the sensor kicks in , if you don't see a clock then the lights stay the same), I think it would pretty much solve all the "what if's" that most people are asking
except for who to sue, but that is probably why america does not have these clocks, because someone is scared t
Could help encourage multiple services (Score:3)
Can the system be modified... (Score:2)
The Good Professor is Confused (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps things are different in Texas, but where I live the majority of traffic lights and stop signs are installed for the express purpose of impeding the flow of traffic. Trying to sell them a sensible system to improve traffic flow, reduce pollution and ticketable offenses is the last thing they'd be interested in.
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Re:The Good Professor is Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
It's fucking retarded. Try walking outside high noon in August in this city. Your face will melt off and your sneakers will turn into a puddle of gummy ooze.
If you actually went out in that weather regularly maybe you'd acclimatize to it. Why live in perpetual war with your environment?
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Solution looking for a problem (Score:2)
This is more like frantic efforts to find a use for a marginal technology.
Cameras on traffic lights are used for this now. These replace the old induction loops. The cameras currently just look at rectangular areas to see if they have a car in them [autoscope.com]. Usually, a few rectangles are defined for each lane, to get a rough count of the number of cars waiting. Enhancing that technology to notice distant approaching cards, estimating their speed and arrival time, and adjusting signals accordingly, is a logical n
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The question I have is this, what effect does this have on the travel time of the not-connected cars. My expectation is that even if the system did not need to, it would make things worse for cars that are not connected. Either it would be inherent in the system, or the system would be programmed to that affect (maybe not at
Nothing new. (Score:2)
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but that's no fun, very unlikely a simple failure could kill anyone. this newfangled this adds more thrill and risk
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waste of time for Professor Stone (Score:2)
His idea presumes that the city traffic engineers care at all that people are wasting time sitting at stop lights. For the most part, they don't.
In the few cities where they actually care, there's no problem to be solved because they've already synch'd the lights to optimize traffic flow.
Another idea (Score:2)
Sounds Awesome If You Live in BFE (Score:2)
So, when all the fucking traffic is going in one direction, why the fuck does it still have to slow down to ten miles an hour on a road where the speed limit is 55?
If you can't solve the gross case of "get everyone outside the city as fast as fucking possible" then the problem of "do I have to wait one minute to make a l
And the next step... (Score:3)
...laissez faire capitalist groups lobby to have the system modified so that those with the most money can buy slots at the traffic light.
This already exists in civilized countries... (Score:5, Interesting)
...but only for public transport!
My wife worked for 9 years optimizing public transport in Oslo, Norway.
One of the key items behind a significant speedup for both buses and trams was a system where each vehicle would signal ahead a given distance before arriving at an intersection, again as it entered, and finally as it left. If you visit Oslo and sit up front in a bus or tram you can see the visual feedback the driver gets: A single white LED mounted near the top of the traffic signal will light up, either blinking or in a steady state.
There is (of course) a web site and a mobile app which will give you real-time information about any given bus/tram/line/stop, as well as rolling displays at all major stops that show the same info.
http://trafikanten.no/ [trafikanten.no] and http://m.trafikanten.no/ [trafikanten.no]
Terje
Asian solution is better (Score:3)
and are you going to build overpass sidewalks? (Score:2)
and are you going to build overpass sidewalks? so you can cross on foot?
Now las Vegas has some pedestrian overpass but I don't see other citys lineing up build more like them.
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someone is driving the car (I assume), so you still follow red/green lights as they show to you.
If the light turns red before you get to the intersection (because say, an ambulance has triggered it, just like they do now), then you stop, you learned how to do that when you got your licence.
This will not guarantee a green light, just increase the chances of a green light when you are at the intersection, if the light is red as you approach then slow down, there are a myriad of reasons that the lights may be
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It's the U.S.; those not in cars are considered mainly useful for target practice.
.... but yeah, that's one reason this is a really dumb idea, and a good example of why "traffic engineers" should never have any authority in city/transportation planning.