Google wants to “manage” traffic lights around the world

THE traffic lights They play an essential role in regulating city traffic and improving road safety. A broken traffic light or the absence of a light at certain intersections or crossroads undoubtedly harms the flow of traffic, and can even cause accidents. If I am involved in a road accident, what fines and sanctions am I exposed to?

And that’s not all: a poorly timed fire can produce or worsen a wide variety of adverse scenarios. From traffic jams and road accidents, for example, to air and noise pollution. A reality that Google wants to help change.

To help solve the problem, the tech giant is diving into developing Green light a project which, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), aims to make traffic more fluid, thus reducing vehicle downtime and therefore pollution.

And, according to the company’s calculations, there are currently about 1.3 billion cars in the world, many of which spend a lot of time stuck or stopped at intersections. In this situation, their engines emit polluting gases, up to 29% more than those produced by the same vehicles when driving on open roads.

Google has developed a system that is intended to be versatile and practical for all types of cities. According to the company, this technology is compatible with current infrastructure, so implementing this type of advancement would be completely free.

Green Light works on four important axes. First, analyze the intersections and traffic lights of the city in question. To do this, it uses data provided by Google Maps who has been mapping places for decades.

Thus, it analyzes, for example, the duration of the traffic light cycle, the transition time, the green division (i.e. time and order of priority), as well as the coordination and sensor operation (actuation).

The next step is to monitor and understand traffic trends. An AI model comes into play here to help understand local patterns, such as start and stop times and average wait times at intersections. This dynamic is evaluated at different times of the day, for example during rush hours.

Once the Google Research system has collected all this information, AI algorithms are used to identify possible adjustments to traffic light times. Once the task is completed, the firm shares these recommendations with the city’s traffic managers so they can implement them if they consider it.

The green light doesn’t stop there, as the company promises to continue monitoring city traffic trends to determine whether adjustments have resulted in real improvement and to improve its existing methods.

So far, Google’s initiative has been implemented in a dozen cities around the world (including Rio de Janeiro, Budapest and Seattle), in which around 30 million monthly trips are made., which will benefit from both fuel savings and a reduction in their polluting emissions.

Early data suggests the adjustments have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by up to 10%.

“By optimizing each intersection and coordinating adjacent intersections, we can create waves of green lights and help cities further reduce stop-start traffic,” says the company, which hopes to gradually expand the scope of the project, which, according to him, could be applied to all cities in the world.