With the aim of lowering greenhouse gas emissions, Google is now working on a new project that optimizes traffic lights using artificial intelligence and Google Maps driving habits.
"Using the existing infrastructure, city engineers can implement them in as little as five minutes. "Cities can improve traffic flow and further reduce stop-and-go emissions by optimizing not just one intersection, but coordinating across several adjacent intersections to create waves of green lights," wrote Yossi Matias, vice president of Google engineering and research. At over 70 junctions where the technology is being implemented, Google claims its data from the 12 cities shows a 30% reduction in stops and up to 10% reduction in greenhouse emissions.
According to studies, improving traffic lights would lower greenhouse gas emissions. According to an Inrix estimate done in 2022, drivers in the United States emit close to 28 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually while stopped at red lights. Bob Pishue, a transportation analyst at INRIX, stated that idling at signals leads in lost time, fuel waste, and wasteful greenhouse gas emissions.