Have you ever waited forever at a traffic light, wondering if it’s ever going to change?
Or have you been stuck in traffic, moving slower than a snail?
Well, scientists have come up with a new idea that could help solve these problems for both pedestrians and drivers.
They’re talking about adding a fourth color to our traffic lights – and it’s white!
This idea comes from smart folks at North Carolina State University.
They’ve been thinking hard about how to make traffic flow better, especially with more and more self-driving cars, or autonomous vehicles (AVs), hitting the roads. They came up with a new traffic signal phase they call the “white phase.”
This isn’t about stopping or going; it’s about making traffic move more smoothly.
Here’s how it works: When the light turns white, it tells human drivers to just follow the car in front of them.
For AVs, which can talk to each other and the traffic signals, it means they can organize themselves to keep traffic flowing well. It’s like having a smart system where the cars and the traffic lights work together to avoid jams and keep everyone moving.
But what about people walking? The researchers didn’t forget about pedestrians. They made sure their new system would help folks on foot too.
They figured out that by adding pedestrians into their calculations, the white light could still make things better for everyone.
The more AVs there are, the smoother traffic will flow, meaning less waiting for pedestrians and drivers alike.
The exciting news is that if almost all cars on the road were AVs in the future, waiting times at intersections could drop by more than 25%!
Even if we don’t get to that point, any increase in AVs could still make a noticeable difference in how quickly we all get around.
Of course, changing traffic lights isn’t something that can happen overnight. The researchers are being cautious, starting small with experiments using mini vehicles.
They’re looking at the challenges and making sure everything’s safe before even thinking about trying it out with real cars on real streets.
They’re also open to working with others who are interested in making this idea a reality.
It might take a while before we see these changes, but it’s an exciting look at how we could make our roads work better for everyone in the future.
The study, “Advancing the White Phase Mobile Traffic Control Paradigm to Consider Pedestrians,” was published in the journal Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering.
