Get green lights all the way home

German carmaker Audi is working on new technology that could revolutionise the way we drive. Indeed, the company is conducting a real-world experiment where cars communicate with traffic lights to ensure the driver almost always get the green.

For the past year, five specially-equipped cars have been driving around Audi’s hometown of Ingolstadt to test how the system works. Unfortunately the cars aren’t available yet to the general public, they’re driven by Audi engineers.

Apart from the mad scramble for the keys to the green-light cars at the end of each day, they are designed to improve traffic flow.

Speaking at the Frankfurt motor show, the head of Audi’s driver assistance systems, Frank van Meel, told the Carsales Network: “We have co-operation with the city of Ingolstadt and we have cars that communicate with traffic lights to optimise traffic flow. The advantage is that you almost always have a green light.”

But best of all, if the traffic is bad, the system warns the driver to reduce speed so he or she can arrive at the next lights as they are about to turn green.

“If there is too much traffic and the system does not allow the traffic lights to switch instantly to green, then the car tells the driver what speed he or she should drive at to improve traffic flow,” van Meel said.

“Let’s say it’s a 40mph zone, it may tell you to drive at 30mph, so when you get to the next traffic light it will be green.”

Van Meel said the system was primarily designed to improve traffic flow but it is an important stepping stone for automotive safety – and towards the uncrashable car.

“The main reason we did it is to get the discussion going about car-to-infrastructure communication,” he said. “It is an enabling technology that we need to go towards autonomous driving, or crash avoidance driving, because the car itself is getting smarter and smarter.

“We are putting more and more intelligence in the cars but we need more intelligence outside the cars and at some stage we have to wait for the environment to catch up.”

When asked if carmakers had done more than governments to improve road safety, he said: “I think both sides have a lot to do. The question is how fast can you get this technology into mass production so it helps everyone.

“A lot of investment is required from both sides. There’s the cost of fitting every traffic light with a communication device, then you need a certain penetration of cars with the system.

“Even if you would have all lights and pedestrian crossings fitted with infrastructure-to-car communication, it wouldn’t help if only 10 per cent of the cars on the road were compatible with the technology. That means 90 per cent of the cars are still hidden from the system. It must be a snowball effect.”

Van Meel said it would likely take 10 to 20 years from the time of introduction for the system to show a measurable effect on reducing crashes.

Meanwhile, Audi is working on the uncrashable car that, in an emergency, will slam on the brakes if you don’t.

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