MOUNTAIN VIEW, Ca. – Google has shared an update about its AI-driven mission to reduce wait times, fuel use, and polluting emissions at intersections – and the early indications are that stops can be reduced by around 30 percent, with emissions dropping around 10 percent.
Multiply that by all the city intersections in the world and we’re potentially looking at a huge impact. Research shows that pollution is around 29 times higher at these junctions than it is on the open road.
All of this optimization is based on a wealth of data gathered from Google Maps. The app is able to monitor vehicle routes and speeds – which is why it can warn you about traffic ahead – and create AI models of how vehicles and lights interact with each other.
Project Green Light, as the scheme is called, is now live in 12 cities and four continents across the world: Seattle, Rio de Janeiro, Manchester, Hamburg, Budapest, Haifa, Abu Dhabi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Jakarta, and Bali. Support for more cities is in the pipeline, and Google is encouraging new sign ups.
Google engineers aren’t the only ones looking at making traffic lights more efficient in order to reduce the output of greenhouse gasses. Earlier this year we saw a study showing how autonomous cars could work in partnership with traffic lights and human drivers to improve the efficiency of intersections.
Other researchers have looked at smart ways of prioritizing buses and bicycles, making greener transport options more attractive. As these schemes and studies show, even small improvements can lead to big differences when you consider how many people take road journeys every day.
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