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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: .....Audi wants to make stopping at red lights a thing of the past Audi Online Traffic Light Information System.The company just needs a green light from regulators to start rolling out a time-saving feature to its future cars. Imagine the scene. Your car pulls on to a road and in the distance is a set of traffic lights. But that's okay because the car already knows and is showing on its display the optimum speed to adopt in order to cruise right through them before they change from green to red. However, it's not always possible to beat the lights -- without breaking the speed limits and other rules of the road -- so the system can also count down the time until the lights will change and use that time to automatically shut down the engine and then fire it up again five seconds before it's time to pull off again. Audi calls it the Audi Online Traffic Light Information System and it is yet another example of all the positive benefits the internet of things and machine-to-machine communication could bring to our lives. The company calculates that if the system went live only in Germany, it has the potential to cut CO2 emissions by up to 15% and could save as many as 900 million gallons of fuel. The system works by using a car's onboard internet connection to communicate with the traffic light network via the central traffic computer in a town or city and is currently being trailed in Las Vegas with 50 sets of traffic lights. Similar tests are also underway in Europe -- 25 Audi drivers are testing the system in Berlin where the cars can communicate with 1,000 sets of lights. A smaller study is also underway in the Italian city of Verona, where 60 sets of traffic lights have been adapted to talk to Audis. While Audi is making swift progress and is already analyzing a potential launch of the system in the US, it is by no means the only car maker involved in such tests. Volvo demonstrated its own take on the same technology in Sweden in June. As well as regulating speed between traffic light sets, the system also alerts drivers when a police car or other emergency services vehicle is in the vicinity and requires right of way and, thanks to a connection with other cars on the road, can provide a driver with live updates regarding road conditions, be it congestion or meteorological problems such as ice on the road surface. Audi says that if the technology is signed off by regulators, it could be installed in all of its new cars now. Poster Comment: Meg, maybe in Utah but in places like Holland and Germany, since 30 years they've had an upgraded version of that where the lights automatically turn red if you exceed the speed limit (and turn back to green as soon as you drop below). And you know what, In all my time there, I NEVER saw somebody who didn't adapt permanently as soon as they figured it out. It is THE ultimate technology for teaching people self-control.+2-1 Rob When I lived in Utah many years ago the lights on State Street in Salt Lake were timed so that if you maintained about 30 MPH going either north or south you would hit all the lights green. Since everyone knew it, everyone went about 30 MPH. It saved time and gas, avoided frustration, and made the traffic flow very smoothly. In short, it was just about perfect, and all without failure-prone electronics. +7 RSS This won't work because slowing down to that you don't have to stop will have others on the road passing you and getting in front of you causing you to have to break further. It's like when you have a two mile long traffic jam on a freeway. In theory the whole line could be moving a 70mph, but one or two people who for some reason slowed down to 10 and the whole miles long line is now going 10. What Audi wants to do would only work if everyone had the technology and actually used it so that ALL the cars slowed down to that optimal speed. Never going to happen. +7-2 1 7 No way this will work. First of all, that big line of cars ahead of you won't get moving in unison when the light turns green. That will leave you at the tail end of the line and, most likely, caught when the light changes to red before you can get to it. This system also fails when ANY emergency vehicle goes through an intersection. They have a strobe light that automatically turns their light to green. It takes several cycles to get the intersection lights back in sequence. We were taught this over 30 years ago when I first became a truck driver. We were taught the Smith System of Space Cushion Driving. They taught us how to look for "fresh" or "stale" green lights so that we could gauge when they would be green as we arrived at the intersection. In light traffic this worked well. In heavier traffic, not so much. +7-1 Bud Have developed the habit of letting off the gas when I see a light up ahead turn red and coast, saving fuel and reducing wear and tear on my vehicle and it's such great fun to watch all the morons in the other lanes still on the gas and charging toward the red light and better yet, the knuckhead who is behind me having to excelerate to pass me so he can jam on his breaks at the intersection, but he's in front of me. There was an informal study done years ago in Chicago where one set of drivers were instructed to follow all traffic laws to the letter while driving from a designated point A to a point B, and a second set of drivers who were instructed to get to point B as fast as possible without endangering themselves, or anyone else on the road. The follow the traffic laws to the letter group arrived at point B on average 1 1/2 minute later than the go as fast as you can group. +1 http://news.yahoo.com/audi-wants-stopping-red-lights-thing-past-154550207.html Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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