Analog Australian Traffic Signal's Time Has Come

That looks like a great idea!

Unfortunately it (1) doesn't conform to international standards (of putting red on top, yellow in the middle and green on bottom) which (2) leads to problems for folks who are color blind and can't tell the difference between red and green. With a little bit of thought, I'm sure that can be fixed.

To me this reads like the "Christmas Tree" staging lights used in drag racing. You'd have yokels eying the dial and feathering the gas as the dial got closer to green. I like that wall of red light that was posted a while back instead.

Yes... that japanese sign is completely intuitive...
Even if it were in english, it still looks to require reading, which shouldn't be a requirement for understanding it. I'm not saying people shouldn't read, but just that they don't. Asking them to interpret more than simply "is the green light on", is probably beyond their capabilities at 50mph.

In Germany, the light turns yellow twice. Before turning red, and again before turning green. This kind of info will become ever more important as people begin integrating start/stop techniques at stoplights. Knowing how soon until the light turns green will help keep you from waiting too long to turn your car back on.

Now if we can just improve human behavior...

Yeah, I have to agree with Dobie here. A lot of people would definitely start moving into the intersection before they should. I also think there would be a lot of arguments about "the arrow was on the line!"

This is cool, but like people have noted you want people to know how much green they have left, but not how much red.

Yellow is pretty much "you're running out of green", and for places where you really want pedestrians out of the way (like the PCH near me) they routinely put in countdown timers to show exactly how much "walk" is left.

There is probably a reason that we've moved to boolean indicators for traffic. It MUST be this way for safety. No room for error or you'll have fatalities.

Another problem would be making this fail "safe".

I like! Neat and effective. Gets people to know exactly when it's time to go, and when it's time to stop.

Think as hard as you like about how to control people's behavior by concealing the duration of the red.... meanwhile people will just do what they do now - lean slightly forward and watch for the yellow in the crossing lane.

No amount of rules or trickery can enforce behavior that requires common sense - those things can only confuse and misdirect common sense. Either people understand that "the intersection is a death zone until the light finally turns green" and do the safe thing for safety's sake - or else the road is a forever hopeless place. Treating drivers like babies isn't a solution - wise adult drivers deserve the full timing signals.

bad bad bad! so many people would run through lights half a second before they would have been green because they think it is safe enough! this wouldn't work at all

@ mrbell

The Japanese sign is from a restaurant (as mentioned in the text); it's being used as an example of an LED sign similar to the stoplight. Even if words were incorporated into a stoplight, they'd still have to use the red/yellow/green color scheme.
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Regarding people's tendencies to get antsy waiting for the light to change: Can't we just look at data from Australia to hazard a guess?

Hold on- do we know that this is the best way to reduce power consumption? I can only make that conclusion if I believe everyone will use the timing information for hypermiling. But average over the whole, inattentive population, wouldn't it be better to minimize time idling at lights? I suspect the best way to do that is, as research has shown in comparison to the current red-yellow-green lights, is to eliminate pre-determined timings altogether and use lights that change timings adaptively in response to traffic flow. These lights exist, but are not often used because of slightly higher upfront costs. Where in use they markedly improve traffic flow.

In India, traffic lights with LED countdowns are not uncommon - they tell the drivers how long before the lights will change, and tell the peds how much time they have to cross. Works well.

When I was learning to drive, my dad taught me to look at the crosswalk sign at red lights, and when the blinking don't walk started it meant that the red light would turn green. There are tons of tricks, if you know them, so we don't need a clock.

When I was learning to drive, my dad taught me to look at the crosswalk sign at red lights, and when the blinking don't walk started it meant that the red light would turn green. There are tons of tricks, if you know them, so we don't need a clock.

Just replace medium-traffic intersection with roundabouts! No stopping necessary when traffic volume is light. No lights to waste energy or ever burn out.

This is a quit amazing. This would ensure safeness and would create a clear flow of people passing on a certain pedestrian and buses riding on a road.In this way drivers and passengers will be on alarm on when to stop and when to go.

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janice
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Traffic light system.
Here's my idea for a modern traffic light control system.

> 1 the main part of the system would be highly sensitive motion detectors that would measure the speed of the approaching vechile, count how many vechiles are approaching.
and also the mass of the vechile.
This would allow it to ascertain if it where a large truck and give it preferential status for right of way.

These would be mounted atop of the lights or further up the road to allow east detection.

2>If a detection system is not availible to detect the mass of a vechile then scales could be built into the road to measure the weight of the approaching vechile , again giving prefential
treatment to heavy vechiles, enabling them to continue umimpeded.

3>.A highly sophisticated computer would calculate all the gathered information , changing the lights to keep the bulk of traffic flowing .

4> As a built in saftey system's it would used the data of approaching vechiles and determine if a collision is imminent.
(in the scenario all lights would immediately flash red ,warning both drivers to stop and yeild , preventing a collision).

Also part of the detector would sense emergency vechiles approaching and automatically give right of way to them.
(This would require emergency vechiles to have a switched sensor emitting a pulse only in emergencys.)

5>.All the traffic light sytsems would intergrate into a main frame computer that uses gathered information to constantly improve on the systems timing and accuracy.
This would be relayed via satellite straight to the main computer , giving a live image of current traffic conditions.
(this can then be relayed to onboard GPS systems of other cars to avoid congested areas.

6>.The enviromental impact would be huge , saving fuel, time, congestion for all drivers , not limited to new hybrid vechiles.

7>.The current system in use today dates back to the 1950's with a trigger wire under the road , connected to a timer box for the
It requires the vechile to come to a complete stop before triggering the lights if they are currently red.

This system is far outdated and needs a modern revamp to meet todays world.

This system would save up to 5-10% on fuel savings for drivers , quickly paying for itself.

The profit potential for producing a modern traffic light system would be huge with millions of intersections around the world in dire need of a quick fix to
help solve , congestion, pollution,rising fuel costs.