Making Light Work of Going Green

Traffic Light Recognition Technology
Could Save Millions of Litres of Fuel

By Bill McLauchlan

Coping with city traffic ain’t the most fun at the best of times. But it can be a bit more bearable if you play the intersection lights to your advantage. We’re talking about working the greens here. By planning ahead and adjusting your road speed as needed you can travel a fair distance before a red light brings you to a halt.

Now, Audi is being a spoilsport and threatening to put an end to this little game. But it’s a good thing. Really.

You see, the German car maker is ready to add a little oil to the wheels of your daily grind with advanced traffic light recognition technology that could make driving through towns and cities far more fluid and free of annoying and fuel-economy-denting red light punctuation.

The Audi system harnesses the power of in-car Internet to establish a link between the car and the traffic light network via the central traffic computer in each town or city. It quickly understands the light-change sequences in the area and, on approach to a set of lights, the Driver Information System (DIS) located in the central instrument cluster then shows the speed to select in order to pass through the light during a green phase. It also displays a visual aid using red, amber or green icons.

Photo: Audi

Audi sees the light to trim down traffic stops – The evolution of the 'connected car' is continuing apace with a demonstration of the company's latest production-ready driver assist technology which enables interactivity with city traffic lights.

If a driver is already waiting at a red light, the system can calculate and count down the time remaining until the next green light is about to appear. It also interacts with the car’s automatic Start-Stop function to ensure the engine is switched on five seconds before the green light is slated to come on.

By Audi’s reckoning, this traffic light recognition method has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 15 percent and could save about 900 million litres of fuel if it were to be deployed throughout Germany.

The fully functional system is now production ready and could fitted to every Audi model subject to any necessary legislation. It was actively demonstrated recently on busy Las Vegas roads in an Audi A6 sedan as part of a trail-blazing technology display at the recent Consumer Electronics Show. Comprehensive testing continues in that city with 50 sets of traffic lights.

Testing is also underway in Verona in northern Italy, where some 60 traffic lights covering almost the entire city are involved. Further testing is also happening in Berlin, where 25 Audi customers are driving cars fitted with Online traffic information that can link up a total of 1,000 traffic lights in that city. A market launch is currently the subject of close study in the U.S.