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Cities without traffic lights
Let's imagine a city without traffic lights, without having to wait at the crossroads for the red color to fade to continue our journey. This is the idea proposed by a new MIT research where when we move slower in car actually faster we will reach our destination.
Taking into account that some urban planners and scientists say that the traffic lights It is reaching the end of its useful life as an urban infrastructure and that its design flaws waste millions of hours of our time.
From the MIT SENSEable City Lab it is investigating a scenario in which vehicles use sensors to stay at a safe distance from each other as they go through a four-way intersection to eliminate waiting caused by traffic lights.
This proposal is framed in a mathematical system that is already used in some airports for the movement of passengers. In the case of vehicles, first of all, a car equipped with sensors it would have to communicate its trajectory right, left or directly to an algorithm that controls the intersection, which would group into a "batch" of other cars going in the same direction. Second, the central software system would have to be able to control the speed of each 'batch'.
Although it may seem crazy at first glance, it is not an idea twenty years from now, it can be a reality and it is feasible with the current technology of theautomobiles considering that already many vehicles come with him built-in cruise control. In this case, the software responds to the optimal speed for your car to travel based on its trajectory and your car's system sets a limit on how fast you can go based on that number, not unlike cruise control.
In the following diagram we can clarify concepts.
What advantages could we find in a city without traffic lights? … From getting to the place where we want to go earlier, through the possibility of being able to double the traffic on the roads to the elimination of traffic lights which is actually an important energy saving for the cities with all the environmental benefits it entails.
The biggest problem is not being able to introduce this technology to the market, it is human behavior, the one who sits behind the wheel … handing over control of the vehicle to software is something really difficult for human beings »
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