New Traffic Lights Could Reduce Traffic

 

Nobody likes getting stuck in traffic. Even worse, nobody likes getting stuck at every red light. The only thing that makes people forget about traffic is when every single light is green. Now, there may be a way to reduce traffic congestions.  

 

A researcher at the University of Toronto named Samah El-Tantawy invented a type of artificial intelligence system that can be fitted to traffic lights. With this system, the traffic lights sense the surroundings and learn what amount of traffic forms during a certain time. They then communicate with one another to reduce the amount of traffic, almost like trying to win a game or solve a puzzle.

 

With this type of system, traffic lights will have a much more flowing process rather than a scheduled process from a central computer. After testing the system at 60 different intersections in Toronto, the new traffic light system reduced the amount of traffic by 40 percent. By those figures, commuting time will also be reduced by 26 percent. That's roughly a 30 minute cut if your commute is over 2 hours.

 

Since this project is still in the testing phase, it will likely be a while until anything like this becomes a reality. But it's always nice to dream that one day, the amount of time it takes to commute from work could be much shorter.