We can say that traffic lights have become important elements of road safety in our daily lives, but now the possibility of wearing a fourth color opens up. Let’s learn more about this change.
Learn more about traffic lights
Many people don’t know this, but the electric traffic light, as it is known today, was created and installed in the North American city of Cleveland in 1914.
Since that year, it has become a basic pillar to be able to Ensuring safety on the world’s roads.
In the first, children learn to know and understand what the different colours they see on traffic lights mean, where this is one of the first lessons they receive about the rules of the road.
Let’s think that traffic lights are essential devices for regulate traffic in citiesThe main function is to ensure the safety of drivers and pedestrians by directing the flow of vehicles and people at intersections.
What traffic lights do is regulate traffic in such a way that they apply a system of colors, where until now there were three which are the ones we all know:
- Red: implies stopping. What this tells us is that vehicles must stop to allow other pedestrians or drivers to pass safely.
- Yellow color: caution. It serves to warn drivers themselves that the light is soon turning red and that they should therefore prepare to stop.
- Color Green: allows vehicles to continue to circulate safely.
Now a fourth color
A group of engineers from the University of North Carolina in the United States have carried out a study that has resulted in proposing that the color white be added to traffic lights, in order to facilitate the integration of cars of the future on the roads.
These vehicles of the future that we are talking about are autonomous vehicles.It is a segment that is still little known, but in the automotive sector they seek to make it popular in the future. For this reason, this color seeks to facilitate the arrival and implementation of this type of vehicles.
The so-called “white phase” would improve traffic, since it would allow autonomous cars to travel to manage level crossings much betterin such a way that it positively affects traffic. This will reduce the time cars spend stationary, thus saving fuel and reducing pollution.
AI at traffic lights thanks to Google?
In this sense, studies have shown that in the North American city of SeattleA traffic light takes on average 20 seconds to change from red to green.
All this means wasted time and gases emitted by cars, which could be avoided with the Google’s new artificial intelligence softwareboth the cost to the environment and to our environment.
The city in the northwest of the United States is among dozens of cities around the world, including some like Rio de Janeiro, Jakarta or Hamburg, tasked with optimizing various traffic lights, all based on driving information from Google Maps to reduce emissions from idle vehicles.
This project analyzes data provided by users of Maps using AI algorithms. Data indicates that thanks to its recommendations, stops are reduced by up to 30% and emissions from thirty million vehicles are reduced by up to 10% each month.
The findings announced by Google, along with another series of updated projects that operate on the basis of data and other research on artificial intelligence, serve to promote greater environmental sustainability.
Regarding this issue, the company operates low-power routes in Maps in Indonesia and India, which it does direct drivers to less traveled roadsso much so that it even presents flight route suggestions to traffic controllers in several countries in order to reduce the vapor trails that warm the climate.
A project with very positive reviews
This Green Light project carried out by Google, the truth is that it is receiving a very good reception, but these new details that we have told you, reaffirm that it can be a very interesting tool to reduce the effects of the retentions, both in time and money, as well as at the environmental level.
We will continue to report on this interesting topic that seems to be able to bring us much joy in a future that is not as distant as it seems.
