In the Future Road Traffic Lights Could Have a Fourth Color

We are used to seeing in our daily lives a simple traffic light system composed of only three different types of lights: red, amber and green. However, it may be a different story in the near future with Connected Automated Vehicles (CAV), as they may use white light for better self-driving.

Traffic lights of four signals may be used for CAVs and CHVs

Scientists at North Carolina State College suggest an additional white traffic signal (light)so that negotiation within road intersections is better managed whenever we have mixed-driven vehicles on the roads (Connected Human-driven Vehicles (CHV) and Connected Automated Vehicles(CAV)), hence it is been said: Traffic Lights Could Have a Fourth Color in the Future. The light is not necessarily used by the Connected Automated Vehicles, as they communicate with the system wirelessly. Therefore, white light or white phase, as the authors call it, is for human drivers. The other reason for such a new kind of light is also related to the reduction of fuels whilst both CAV and CHV are on the roads. 

“According to the paper “ CAVs were utilized to serve as traffic controllers in the newly implemented “white phase” system. During the intersections CAVs will liaise the right-of-way to guide a group of CHVs right in front of them. in places where cars have to wait for green lights, the white phase, under low CAV’s presence will not be started. The problem has been created by distributed mixed-interger nonlinear software and a methodology was put in place to allow agreement among every car within their trajectory and signal timing parameters”. (Ramin Niroumand et al., 2023)

The idea is for it to function as an indicator to human drivers and passengers that they should comply with the lead of the self-driving vehicles moving through the junction.

” Traffic light will function as usual, green lights will still indicate go. And also white lights will notify human drivers to simply comply with the automobile before them,” mentions civil designer Ali Hajbabaie. “This idea we’re suggested for road intersection, which we call a “white phase” use the computer power of autonomous vehicles.”

Here’s exactly how it would operate: CAVs must interact with each other whilst communicating with the traffic system within road intersections at a specific distance from such intersections. That would enable them to work with traffic flow a lot more efficiently and also wisely.

Just how does it work?

The methods utilized are based on the lead of the CAVs. As long as there are enough of them on the road and by the intersection. While this number of CAVs are accepted, human drivers (i.e. CHV) must obey the lead of CAVs. Once the number of CAVs is reduced then the traffic light system returns to normal. That is, amber, red and green, as usual.

With the simulation of this novel system, researchers found out that with the introduction of CAVs into the road system, they were able to enhance traffic circulation and at the same time optimize fuel consumption. In other words, the more the number of CAVs on the road intersections the more efficient the circulation becomes. This increase in the rapidity of car flow was observed to be between 40% to 90%.

“it is relatively a new idea for us to allow traffic fluidity control to autonomous cars such as CAVs, this is termed control paradigm,” asserted Ali Hajbabaie. As presented by Ali Hajbabaie, “this novel system can be applied to coordinate all types of scenario as it involve various types of CAVs. The existence of white light is mainly to warn human drivers the need of extra caution in intersections.”

.

According to the results observed, it was possible to notice several performances. That is, whenever the number of CAVs, automated vehicles by the road intersection is above 30% in efficiency. And this creates a running system of fully automated white-phase road intersections.

Current State of Research Implementation

Initially, such research was developed using a central computer, in which all the processing power was locally executed. The present research aimed at turning the processing power from fixed to mobile. Hence, as the technology evolved this was apparently possible, and implementable. However, there is still the need for a systematic effort to see fruition in the application of the process. Despite, all the hurdles that are necessary to overcome, certain aspects of the technology can effortlessly be applied. Now, the team of scientists from the project plans to introduce it in a physical location to test the proposal.

“ The availability of  car traffic of commercial types in ports have been significant. Nowadays, most modern commercial vehicles already have autonomous technologies. Hence there may be an advantage if we implement a trial project on commercial transports as well as  traffic within a port environment.” Attests Hajbabaie

Source based on Preprint paper: White Phase Intersection Control through Distributed Coordination: A Mobile Controller Paradigm in a Mixed Traffic Stream

Another source: Science Alert.

Read more: Connected Car Operates with G+D Technology