I've heard of stopping at a traffic light, but how about a traffic light stopping you? Researchers at IBM have filed a patent on technology that would control a vehicle's engine at busy intersections in order to improve fuel efficiency. Shout out to Physorg for flagging this technology. Here's how they describe it:
The system would be able to receive position information from vehicles waiting at red lights to determine a queue of participating vehicles stopped at the signal. It would then determine the time still to elapse before the lights turn green, and if this time is over a set threshold (such as two minutes) the traffic light would then send signals to the vehicle engines to stop them.
When the lights turn green, a “start-engine notification” would be sent to the front vehicle to start its engine first, and a signal would be sent to the second vehicle in the queue an “optimal time” later, and so on.
If something like this ever did come into existence, it would probably wouldn't be mandatory. In one of the proposals, IBM suggests that the capability could be offered as a service. Drivers would sign up for it and receive stop/start engine notifications suggesting that they turn off their cars, while waiting for the light to turn green.
Jeez by the time a technology like this would come into play, I would hope that we're all driving electric cars.
Photo: Jeff Spielman/Getty Images
Tags: Transportation, Transportation Infrastructure, Urban Planning, Vehicles and Equipment
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