Traffic light synchronization...app!

[botsapper]

Honda is pragmatically taking the next step for the generation of semi/fully autonomous driving vehicles. This testing program, Universal Traffic Management Systems (UTMS), is using feedback from the local traffic light system to manage the best timing and best average speeds. The system will advise when the upcoming light will turn green and if too close, advise to begin coasting and avoid sudden braking. If you're impatient: when stopped at red lights, the system will count down to 'go' green light.

Take my money.

Honda Worldwide | March 28, 2014 "Honda to Begin Demonstration Testing of Driving Support System on Public Roads Utilizing Traffic Signal Information in April 2014"

[user removed]

With any human interaction with a car, if a pattern can be determined and it has apporpriate sensory capability, those actions can be automated. The real question is would that automation be reliable enough for the driver to be eliminated?

This means a manufacturers system has to survive every legal attempt to blame that system for an accident.

Pre-emptive actions and determining when a certain sequence of events allows preception to give advance warning of apotential catastrophic consequence will be some time in the future. The lawyers will hate it and probably legislate roadblocks to prevent it.

regards
Mech

[botsapper]

The proposal has a design criteria with a very limited scope: a visual display of a 'suggested' vector quantity, acceleration or slowing/braking in a traffic light-controlled environment. Similar to mpg arduinos/mpg gauges, the driver still maintains control for best mpg/speed range.

It may be great in practice but can foresee the unfortunate litigious US easily derail the device/app. Any nefarious litigant involved in a accident could 'blame' the device; for leading them to speed up into a 'going red' intersection, to aggressively pass slower vehicles to maintain 'best' average speed, and the countdown to green, like Christmas tree - an invitation to drag!

[aerohead]

There's nothing I can say which isn't politically incorrect,even at the Lounge.
The Texas State Governors Office published a study in 1993 which said we'd (the taxpayer) save $62 for every $1 spent on traffic light synchronization.
Government and business must have inverted the logic,ascertaining that they'd lose $62 for any $1 spent.
The entropy is designed right into the structure of the road systems.Every intersection would have to be demolished and reconfigured,along with the adjoining commercial real estate development to fix it.
All new development is perpetuating the same mistakes made in the past.
Those in authority don't seem to clearly understand the concept of getting to destinations with minimum entropy.
If they designed the human vascular system we'd all die en vitro.

[tony_2018]

We have way too many idiots driving now a days, pulling out in front of other people "pretending" to not see them and expecting others to yield. Jaywalkers walking the streets, people not paying attention to designated signs when crossing. Theres too many variables.

[cbaber]

My guess is that only a fraction of drivers would be open to voluntarily changing their driving habits based on this systems suggestions. Most drivers I see believe that intersections are drag strips, and every block is a race.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by aerohead

If they designed the human vascular system we'd all die en vitro.

Just a quibble, but I think you meant 'in utero' - that is, in the uterus. 'In vitro' means 'in glass': IOW doing stuff in test tubes.

I'm amused to see that Honda is finally catching up to me :-) I designed & simulated a similar system back in the mid-90s, for a computer science class project.

[freebeard]

I'll just repeat what I said in the thread about Audi showing the same concept:

Originally Posted by me

Basically, the story is that AudiHonda is catching up with Eugene, OR.

Green Driver

I told my son about this years ago. In five minutes he had already downloaded it to his iPhone and decided it was superior to the turn-by-turn in his SRT-8. An hour later he was already grumpy when we rolled into Springfield and it stopped working.

It isn't predictive of the lights, it's peered to the traffic-light servers that control the lights. When you can can see all the lights in town all the time, bad synching of the light will cause citizen advocacy. David Brin would call it sousveillance.

We shall see how AudiHonda does with the various municipalities.