Being stuck in traffic is one of the most infuriating experiences for a driver, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University may have found a solution. They claim they can reduce the commute times of urban workers by 40% by replacing physical traffic lights with virtual traffic lights.
"With this technology, traffic lights will be created on demand when [two cars] are trying to cross this intersection, and they will be turned down as soon as we don't need it," explains Ozan Tonguz, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who helped develop the technology.
Virtual traffic lights appear on the driver's dashboard and explain with green and red arrows which direction they can safely travel in, just like with normal traffic lights. But they disappear once the junction has been crossed.
The developers say virtual traffic lights will cut carbon emissions, reduce accidents and cut those annoying commute times.
I would like this. I hate being at a red light and there's NO ****ING CARS DRIVING THROUGH THE INTERSECTION. I'm just like why am I waiting for NO ONE?
I'm not a big fan of having cars networked, I would rather have the car be autonomous and a closed system. If they do need to talk in the future it should be to share innocuous data where upon system failure my life and others are not put in jeopardy. Closed systems still need to be robust and have redundancy but at least I'm not relying on many cars system where the more cars you add the higher the chance of failure.
