February 21, 2012 at 11:24 AM

Unless you live in a fantastic and coordinated city like Portland, Oregon, you're likely familiar with the phenomenon of idiotic traffic lights that conspire to turn red just as you approach to make way for zero cars coming the other way. It's not just annoying, it's also bad for the ol' environment, and intelligent traffic lights could make a big difference.

Peter Stone, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, thinks that it would be helpful if traffic lights were smart enough to listen to you screaming at them to either turn green or stay green. His idea is to set up a sort of "reservation system," where your car could contact an approaching traffic light in advance. The light is listening to all of the cars coming toward it at once, keeping track of which cars want to get through when, dynamically altering its timing to provide for the most efficient traffic flow possible.
via DVICE

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