Traffic jams are horrible. There are densely populated areas of the world where they are a huge problem. Places like Los Angeles or the Massachusetts metropolitan area (Boston) where you have to spend hours in traffic. This city has turned to Google’s Artificial Intelligence to tackle the problem: it has partnered with the Green Light Project to alter traffic light patterns… in the hopes of reducing congestion.
Boston traffic chief Jascha Franklin-Hodge says the system “provides our traffic engineers with important data to adjust a signal within seconds, which can help reduce congestion along a corridor.” The city also says the technology should smooth out stop-and-go traffic, which would reduce emissions.
The first tests appear to have been successful. Officials claimed that at the first intersections stop-and-go traffic had been reduced by more than 50%. In this regard, other cities around the world using Project Green Light have experienced an average reduction of 10% in emissions.
Boston consistently ranks among the worst cities in the United States for traffic. According to various statistics, drivers lost an average of 42 hours in traffic in 2023. Any improvement in travel times is a benefit for everyone.
Google explains that Project Green Light “uses AI to improve the lives of people in cities around the world by reducing traffic and emissions. “We are very encouraged by the initial results we have seen in Boston and look forward to working in collaboration with the city to expand this technology to more intersections.”
Project Green Light is still a new project, and aside from Boston, only Seattle is participating in the US testing program. Google said the project is underway at more than 70 intersections around the world and affects 30 million car trips each month. The company plans to expand to “hundreds of cities and tens of thousands of intersections in the coming years.”
Via: WCVB
