(ORDO NEWS) — In a hypothetical future where autonomous vehicles drive up and down our busy roads, traffic lights could have a fourth color added for the convenience of self-driving vehicles.
North Carolina State University researchers are proposing an optional white traffic light that will signal to drivers that autonomous vehicles (AVs) are intelligently managing an upcoming traffic intersection.
The idea is that both traffic congestion and overall fuel consumption could be reduced.
Cars and trucks that drive on their own won’t need to “look” at a white traffic light because they will communicate with it wirelessly.
However, this will serve as a signal to drivers and passengers that they should follow unmanned vehicles moving through the intersection.
“A red light will still mean stop. Green light will still mean movement. follow the car in front of them,” says civil engineer Ali Haibabaye.
“This concept that we propose for interchanges, which we call “white phase”, uses the computing power of autonomous vehicles.”
Here’s how it would work: autonomous vehicles would communicate with each other and with traffic lights at intersections within a certain range.
This would allow them to more efficiently and intelligently coordinate traffic flow, prioritizing converging roads with a large number of vehicles, for example, and recommending the best speed.
All human drivers in the mix will be instructed to follow the vehicle ahead into the white light: stop if it stops, continue if it continues.
Once the number of autonomous vehicles at an intersection falls below a certain threshold, the traffic lights will return to their usual red, yellow and green colors.
In simulations, drones have been shown to improve traffic flow. by themselves, and even more so with the introduction of the white phase, which has a positive effect on reducing fuel consumption.
The higher the percentage of autonomous vehicles at an intersection, the faster traffic moved, with a 40 to 99 percent improvement possible in terms of overall delay reduction.
“Giving some of the traffic flow control to autonomous vehicles is a relatively new idea called the mobile driving paradigm,” Haibabaye says. “It can be used to coordinate movement in any scenario involving AV.”
“But we think it’s important to include the concept of white light at intersections because it tells drivers what’s going on so they know what they should be doing when approaching an intersection.”
The researchers note that when the number of autonomous vehicles at an intersection exceeds 30 percent, the improvements become more significant.
With 70 percent AV in traffic, the intersection can operate in mostly fully automatic white phase mode.
We don’t have the technology to do something like this yet, although improvements are being made all the time. time.
This study builds on a previous study by the same researchers in 2020, in which traffic flow was controlled by a central computer connected to an intersection.
Here, the necessary calculations can be performed by the unmanned vehicles themselves.
Modernizing each intersection will, of course, take time and money, but the researchers believe that some aspects of the white phase idea can be implemented relatively easily.
Trial runs in certain areas could be the next step forward.
“Ports are facing high volumes of commercial vehicle traffic, for which traffic flow is especially important,” Haybabai says.
“Commercial vehicles appear to have higher adoption rates of autonomous vehicles, so it may be possible to implement a pilot project in these conditions that could benefit port traffic and commercial vehicles.”
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