Link: Data suggests Project Green Light, Google's AI system deployed in 14 cities to adjust traffic light timing, reduced stop-and-go traffic at intersections by 30% (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)

In this day and age, when we can track our food being delivered, monitor our front door from anywhere in the world, and ask artificial intelligence just about anything, must we spend so much time sitting at red lights? There is hope. Google, for example, is rapidly expanding a one-year-old product, called Green Light, that will create “green waves”—that is, one green light after another—in 14 cities where the system is already deployed, says Juliet Rothenberg, product lead of Climate AI, part of Google Research. “Instead of installing cameras at an intersection, if we know the trajectory of the vehicle, then the vehicle itself becomes the traffic sensor,” says Henry Liu, who leads the research team at the University of Michigan. If this approach could be rolled out nationwide, its proponents say it could make a significant dent in the amount of time we all spend idling at the country’s 300,000-plus traffic signals. Data from the cities where Google’s Green Light is already in operation—including Abu Dhabi, Hamburg, Seattle and Kolkata—suggest the system yields a 30% reduction in stop-and-go traffic at intersections. #

--

Yoooo, this is a quick note on a link that made me go, WTF? Find all past links here.