We all know the colours of traffic lights – red, yellow (also called amber) and green, arranged in that order either vertically or horizontally. They are the same all over the world and have remained the same for over a century. Scientists have now proposed a fourth colour for these lights for driverless vehicles, according to a report Metro UK.
There are no fully driverless cars on the road, as autonomous vehicles (AVs) are a relatively new concept. Waymo, a self-driving taxi company, has almost reached level five, or SAE4, in California and Arizona. Tesla and other AVs are also growing in popularity. Meanwhile, self-driving cars are currently not allowed on UK roads with a few exceptions. However, the Automated Vehicles Act could allow them as early as 2026. This shows that autonomous and human-driven vehicles will soon co-exist on the roads.
Meanwhile, engineers at North Carolina State University are installing “white lights” on traffic lights, allowing self-driving cars to help with traffic flow and communicate with human drivers to let them know what’s going on. According to study leader Dr. Ali Hajbabaei, the goal was to use the A.V.’s computing power to determine which vehicles are where.
“The white phase concept involves a new traffic signal so that human drivers know what to do. The red light will still mean stop. The green light will still mean go ahead. And the white light will tell human drivers to just follow the car ahead of them,” he said.
Dr Hajbabaei, along with his team, created several computer simulations to visualise how the new system, which could improve travel times, fuel efficiency and safety, would work. The findings have been published in the Journal of Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering. According to the proposal, the AVs would be able to communicate wirelessly with each other as well as with the computers that manage the traffic signals. When a sufficient number of automated vehicles approach the intersection, the new traffic signal system would be activated. Any non-automated vehicle would simply need to follow the vehicle ahead of it, and the white lights would tell onlookers that the AVs are coordinating their speed to move traffic through the intersection.
However, traditional red, yellow, and green lights will be used for the most part until practically all cars become autonomous vehicles, and the system will work the same way it has been doing for over a century. The team also found that the white light concept “improves traffic efficiency for both vehicles and pedestrians.”
“If at some point in the future we see AVs being adopted nearly ubiquitously, our models suggest that delays at intersections would decrease by more than 25%. More realistically, we would eventually see a lower percentage of wirelessly connected AVs on the road, but still a meaningful improvement in traffic times,” the scientist said.
