Future Connected Traffic Light Inspired by Ant Colonies

Many insects travel using simple, logical rules that determine where they go and why, but these rules are often implemented to create very complicated behaviors. A traffic researcher at Carnegie Mellon University has applied this knowledge to human traffic and has created a smart traffic light. 

Ozan Tonguz's solution hinges on vehicle-to-vehicle communication that sends road data among the cars on the road. This technology is already in real world tests in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

With Tonguz's system, the traffic light would receive data from oncoming traffic. It would decide, which direction had the largest amount of traffic, and change the light to green in that direction. When the traffic decreased so that the other direction had more oncoming cars, the light would change to let those cars go. 

Tonguz claims that in computer simulations, the system allows 40% to 60% to move through an intersection than a current traffic light. His plan also already received $2 million in research funding to test in the real world.

In the real word, Tonguz's traffic light might need some adjustments. If the intersecting streets did not have roughly equal amounts of cross-traffic, some drivers could be waiting longer than current systems until enough drivers are available to offset the more popular route. 

It is also going to be a decade or more before new cars are equipped with vehicle-to-vehicle communication. 

Source: Gizmag