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LINK Traffic Lights Need a Fourth Color, Study Says: Here's Why

A Study Proves Stoplights Need a Fourth Color: White

Here’s what it signals—and why it makes a ton of sense.

BY DARREN ORF PUBLISHED: FEB 8, 2023

As more autonomous vehicles (AV) begin driving American roads, those roads need to change with them.
One research team proposes a white light that allows AVs to leverage their impressive networking capability.
These white light would signal human drivers to simply follow the car in front and could decrease traffic delays significantly
As more self-driving cars enter roadways around the world, many aspects of driving could change forever. More electric vehicles (EVs) and autonomous vehicles (AV) are already leading engineers to implement electric roadways and city planners to design dedicated lanes for AVs—and now, the humble traffic light is next for a makeover.

For the dawning age of the self-driving car, transportation engineers from North Carolina State University are proposing the addition of a fourth “white light” whose function would be to alert humans to simply “follow the car in front of them.”

That’s because to leverage the full potential of autonomous cars means to also embrace their ability to act as a kind of hive mind. Because they’re essentially computers on wheels, these cars can network with both the traffic light and other nearby self-driving cars to help ease traffic delays and increase fuel (or electricity) efficiency. The team’s results were published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems on Monday.

“Granting some of the traffic flow control to the AVs is a relatively new idea, called the mobile control paradigm,” says corresponding author Ali Hajbabaie in a press release. “It can be used to coordinate traffic in any scenario involving AVs. But we think it is important to incorporate the white light concept at intersections because it tells human drivers what’s going on, so that they know what they are supposed to do as they approach the intersection.”

In this scenario, a traffic signal would operate as normal when the percentage of self-driving cars at an intersection is low, but when that number increases, the “white light” signals to human drivers that their robo-motorists have assumed control and to simply follow the car ahead. The paper’s authors say the light doesn’t need to be white and can be any color (we vote purple).

The researchers tested this system using microscopic traffic simulators, which are complex computational models designed specifically to recreate traffic conditions down to each individual car. When operating with the “white phase” intersection, traffic delays improved 3 percent when only 10 percent of cars were AVs—but that number jumped to 10.7 percent when there were 30 percent AVs. In other words, more AVs means less traffic.

The team first introduced the idea of a fourth light in 2020, but realized a centralized system with a traffic light receiving AV signals and calculating the best route caused processing delays. This made the concept impractical, so the researchers instead designed a more distributed system.

However, adding a new color to a traffic light is no easy feat—it’s sort of why it hasn’t been done in more than a century. There are hundreds of thousands of traffic lights in the U.S. alone, but 75 percent of those lights need to be upgraded or replaced. Those upgrades could (and should) prepare for AVs’ eventual arrival.

But instead of revolutionizing the four-way intersection near you, the authors say some near-term “white light” pilot programs could begin in a more controlled environment like ports where commercial vehicles, which are more likely to be AVs than personal vehicles, would benefit from an additional fourth light.

In the near term, things will remain red, yellow, and green, but this white light concept proves that AVs will one day upend every aspect of driving in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.

HippieChick58 9 Feb 10
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2

All the newest technology today is for one purpose - to allow more humans to squeeze on this planet. The more cars the more accidents so technology to the rescue (not).
In the nineteenth century there was an economist named Jevons. He came up with an idea how technology actually can make things worse. "In economics, the Jevons paradox (/ˈdʒɛvənz/; sometimes Jevons effect) occurs when technological progress or government policy increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the falling cost of use increases its demand, increasing, rather than reducing, resource use.[1] The Jevons effect is perhaps the most widely known paradox in environmental economics.[2] However, governments and environmentalists[needs update] generally assume that efficiency gains will lower resource consumption, ignoring the possibility of the effect arising." [en.wikipedia.org] In effect as things get safer more will use it but as things start to unravel because there were made safer new technology comes along to start the whole process all over again. When leaded gas was found to pollute the air people were forced to gut back on their driving. Then big tech came along and reduced the pollution and what we now have are overcrowded roads.
[en.wikipedia.org]

1

I agree not to use white. Bus lines (here) use white traffic lights, so it seems silly to use a color already in use for something else.

1

the indicator, light or otherwise should be placed on the vehicles "paired".

1

Yellow/orange traffic lights mean stop if it is safe to do so, but looks a lot like hit the accelerator for some drivers.

Why not change their meaning to 'follow on/ red imminent' and use red as the only stop signal?

.

2

Anything would be an improvement for the 4 way stop. My friend who is blond had a favorite joke.
Q. What do you call 4 blonds, in 4 separate cars at a 4 way stop?
A. Eternity.
The biggest problem in Kittitas County is the fact most of the roads are below safety standards. Around Ellensburg it's better but most rural roads are 2 lanes with no shoulder. Many have an irrigation ditch running parallel to the road. Redneck ass holes don't like bicycles riding on their roads and be quite rude.
I don't think they understand what a solid yellow line means either.

Google: "You may not cross a solid yellow line to pass another vehicle. Double solid yellow lines mean that vehicles in both directions are prohibited from passing." But a solid yellow appears the same in both directions, so what's the difference between one solid yellow and two? Don't both forbid passing in both directions?

@racocn8 I do not have an answer to the question of one or 2 yellow lines. What I see around this county ALL the fucking time are people who think they do not have to stay on their side of the damn line. Here's an example: I'm on a 2 lane road with a yellow line. Riding in the lane on the other side of the line is a person on a bicycle, coming up behind the bike rider is some jerk white boy with a hat on in a big ass diesel pickup truck who crosses into MY lane to pass the guy on the bike. I have to slow way down or stop so that ass can be on his more important than me way. Happens all the time, the guy in the pickup was suppose to slow down or stop until I was past so he could safely cross the yellow line to give the 5 foot clearance they are suppose to give a person on a bicycle when passing.

@racocn8 A double solid yellow signifies multidirectional traffic flow (and that neither direction can use the other lane to pass). A single solid yellow would be used when you can't switch lanes between two lanes of traffic going in the same direction...

@racocn8 No, because the view/safety of passing in one direction is completely different from the other direction.

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