{"id":2737,"date":"2016-05-16T07:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-05-15T18:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.drivingtests.co.nz\/resources\/?p=2737"},"modified":"2020-01-21T07:33:37","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T18:33:37","slug":"will-we-always-need-traffic-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drivingtests.co.nz\/resources\/will-we-always-need-traffic-lights\/","title":{"rendered":"Will we always need traffic lights?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One quarter of all accidents and a third of all fatal accidents occur at intersections. The accidents themselves cause loss of life, and the resulting traffic problems cause loss of productivity and an increase in traffic pollution. Traffic lights<\/a> are one of the ways in which we control traffic flow, but they are not as efficient as they could be.<\/p>\n

Stopping and then accelerating at intersections is an unnecessary cause of pollution and carbon emissions, and it also delays drivers which adds economic cost to businesses that rely on freight and deliveries.<\/p>\n

Research into traffic light phasing and autonomous (driverless) vehicles<\/a> by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Senseable City Lab<\/a>, the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETHZ) and the Italian National Research Council (CNR) has resulted in a slot-based system of allowing vehicles just enough time to pass through an intersection before another vehicle comes. Their model cuts delays in half, doubling the traffic throughput (however, it doesn’t account for bottlenecks that occur in other areas that could hold traffic up at the intersection).<\/p>\n