Smarter Traffic Lights

Energy & Infrastructure Transportation
1

Transfer some DOD funds to install smarter traffic lights,

  1. Many lights can be altered between red/yellow/green and blinking yellow depending if it is rush hour or hours of little traffic.
  2. Install vehicle sensors up the road to enable red light to change to green upon vehicle approach IF no vehicle is traveling where lanes are presently green.
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I like these ideas and think our traffic issues need to be fixed! How much time and energy is wasted with millions of people sitting in traffic every single day?

I agree about the lights. Maybe in addition, change the law for red lights- you have to stop but if there is no cross traffic (at 5am in the morning) you can proceed through the light.

Also to go a bit deeper, our culture has been formed that going to work and sitting in traffic is just part of life! How can we change that, if you have a skill or passion for work, how can that be used closer in your community, so we are not traveling so much? Covid exposed that more of us can work from home and not travel, but we also need to look at the value to millions of people sitting on their computers sending email and such…? What is the value to that person’s life force, and what is the value to that person’s community and or tribe towards local self-sustainability.

Also, that we should be looked at in infrastructure and transportation; is the billions that is being spent on these split-level fly-over-passes, their efficiency and return on investment (while the road we are actually driving on, in the meantime of construction, is horrible and unsafe). Wouldn’t spending that money towards hyper rail and more public transportation be worthwhile? We need to change the culture of why we travel and the overall waste and value of now common travel practices.

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If there is one 18 wheeler that flips on one of the those fly-overs, there is nowhere for anyone to go. I want to see the study on how these split-level-fly-overs solve traffic problems and not cause more?

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Thanks for your thoughts.

  1. To calculate the time & energy wasted first involves counting the number of vehicles in relation to their position in time; the two (2) quantities must then be expressed in a common term. How about monetary? Here is a copy/paste of what I wrote in 2016:
    I’ve been told that time is money. So, I wonder “How much money is time worth?”.
    To determine how much money time is worth, I propose that the amount of money earned by employed people during the time they are employed is important to answer the question. I only care about the answer in regard to the United States of America; for, the answer is essential in my desire to help develop smarter traffic lights.
    The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States of America (USA) was – in the year 2016 – approximately $18.57 trillion. In that year, there were approximately 150 million workers; and these workers spent approximately 33 hours – on average - per week working.
    So, $18,570,000,000,000 was earned in the year 2016. Multiplying the number of workers by the number of hours worked each week equals 150,000,000 x 33 = 4,950,000,000 hours per week.
    Dividing the GDP by 52 weeks shows the total amount of money earned by the workforce each week in the year 2016. So, $18,570,000,000,000 divided by 52 equals $357,000,000,000; this is the weekly GDP earned by workers in the USA.
    Therefore, $357,000,000,000/week (GDP earned) divided by 4,950,000,000 hours per week (worked) shows that – in America in the year 2016 - time was worth approximately $72/hour.
    Next to consider, how much time is spent waiting for ill-timed traffic lights?
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What is a fly-over?

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The split-level highways, or spaghetti bowls. Roads way up in the air that take forever to build, cost massive amounts of money and I can’t see how they solve traffic. In towns that have them completed, there is always traffic on both levels. Complete waste, while we should have more speed rail and public transportation that works, like in Europe.

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I would like to offer a similar idea concerning traffic lights. I have to believe we could develop infrared beam lights that read traffic conditions and can adjust the light to maintain optimal flow in coordination with computer/ ai control synced with other traffic lights. The focus would be to try to move traffic along to minimize pollution. Moving vehicles can pollute less. During light traffic they could adjust turn lane lights to minimize idling/ polluting / heating the atmosphere.

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I’m very interested in your “infrared beam lights”. How would they work? My concept would use existing traffic sensing devices (magnetic strips buried in pavement, etc.).

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I have to say I don’t have any engineering or electronics background so it may be naive of me but I will throw some ideas out. I would see a self contained bulb to fit in existing light housings. Each bulb with an infrared, a radar scanner that sees at night or in bad weather to read traffic in that lane for a measured distance. Maybe an interactive camera of sorts. It’s similar to your idea of sensors. It wouldn’t require digging. Rewiring if needed could be done using the existing equipment. The bulb would track multiple targets for 1000 yards? I would imagine a 4 way light set up. 3 lanes each direction with left and right turn lanes and a straight through lane with a separate light fixture for each. 12 light in all which is probably normal… All of the sensors would feed a central hub computer, with AI? That computer would also link other lights in the area. The priority would be keeping traffic moving so straight through lanes would be the default. If traffic is heavy in a turn lane with no opposing traffic it would change the lift to move that traffic. Even a 10% reduction in cars adding heat , pollution emissions could be huge

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