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> A simple example: at night, a main road mainly displays green, the side streets only get green for a very short time. If you arrive with the app from a side s
by rob74 1y ago
> A simple example: at night, a main road mainly displays green, the side streets only get green for a very short time. If you arrive with the app from a side street, you can get green immediately, provided there is no traffic on the main road.
In Germany, there's an established but much more low tech approach to this problem: simply turn off the traffic lights at night! All traffic lights already have yield/stop/priority signs as a fallback, so those take over. The yellow lights on the side street will usually flash as an additional warning so you don't overlook the yield/stop sign.
- phkahler 1y agoI don't understand why they need apps for this either. The infrastructure should be in place to detect cars approaching from the side street. Once they have the ability to detect cars, it's simple to assume everyone would be requesting a green light.
- bluecalm 1y agoWe have those in Poland. Sucks if you are on a bike. You need to wait for a car to turn it green for you.
- 6510 1y agoIn the Netherlands we have ones that detect warm bodies.
- hobofan 1y agoSucks if you are a zombie...
- AlecSchueler 1y agoThere's a road closure near me here in Rotterdam which has encouraged some people to get around it by cycling on a short patch of the tram track. It's quite funny to hear the "tram approaching" bell ringing only to look and see a small boy on his bike.
- toast0 1y agoIf they're using inductive vehicle detector loops in the pavement, those can be tuned to detect motorcycles and bicycles (probably not carbon fiber bikes though). Where I've seen and used loops tuned for bicycles, they have a different cut pattern and a painted bike to accent positions where the detector is likely to detect you... Sadly, they don't tend to have far back detectors (advance loops) tuned for bikes so an idle intersection won't be green when you get there like if you were a car. You can sometimes get a detection on a car tuned detector by riding right on top of the wire, but it's iffy. I'd imagine camera detectors can be tuned for bicyclists as well, but I have less experience with those. Here's a nice survey of bicycle detection options [1], if you're willing to work with whoever does traffic control near you, this might help get a conversation started. This is focused on US applications, but the ideas should be broadly applicable. [1] https://altago.com/wp-content/uploads/ALTA_Bike_Detection_White_Paper_July2021.pdf https://altago.com/wp-content/uploads/ALTA_Bike_Detection_Wh...
- ergsef 1y agoMy city has inductive bike sensors at specific intersections but many intersections (even ones with bike lanes) lack them. Cycling infrastructure is so half-assed in the US.
- throwawaylaptop 1y agoCost per benefit? My friend is a commercial property guy and sometimes has to bring properties up to date for handicapped access. He jokes that with how few handicapped people use the features, he could probably give people $1k each as an apology for not being able to go into the building and be far ahead. I started thinking that for the most part most handicapped people would even take that deal. I think I would.
- toast0 1y agoI don't think it costs that much more to use a D or Q pattern for the inductive loop instead of a circle for new loops. But, if the loops are already there, it is a lot of expense to put in new ones. Adding a loop to bike lanes might be reasonable, or maybe it forces a controller upgrade and that's not reasonable... but if you make the lowest speed through lane and at least one of each protected turn lanes bike accessible (while otherwise doing loop work), that's good. I think the loops are pretty shallow, so if the road has significant rebuild/repair, it's time to address the loop design. The key word for ADA is reasonable accomodation. It does add expense, and not every feature is used often, but it's 35 years since the ADA passed and the US is a lot more accessible now than it was in 1990. The window of reasonable changes over time too, of course.
- mike-cardwell 1y agoSince when did cyclists take notice of traffic lights?
- bluecalm 1y agoIf you think cyclists break more traffic rule than drivers your view or reality is distorted. Try looking at the data and then around. You just notice them breaking the rules because they are different than you. It's a bias worth correcting.
- Tade0 1y agoI notice them when I cycle. Most common infraction, which I can't understand due to the sheer danger, is running red lights. Wouldn't occur to me in a car, much less in a smaller vehicle.
- mike-cardwell 1y agoDifferent than me? When I used to cycle, I skipped through traffic lights, when it seemed safe to, and I've seen many other cyclists do the same. It's not a bias, it's an observation. But I mainly said it as a joke, because it's a well known stereotype, for good reason. At least where I am.
- abdullahkhalids 1y agoI have one in my city in Canada. Basically, on the bike you have to mount your bike from the bike path onto the sidewalk and press the pedestrian walk button. That turns the light green. Extremely annoying.
- phkahler 1y agoSo they assume perfect vehicle detection? Sensors should be used to speed up a regular cycle. They should not be the only thing changing a light.
- Ajedi32 1y agoPresumably the app would be able to signal the presence of an approaching car from a much longer distance than the inductive loops you typically see these systems, ensuring cars don't even need to slow down when approaching the intersection. (Saving gas, brake/tire wear, and time.) It's also probably cheaper than the extra physical infrastructure needed for inductive loops, given that all the necessary equipment (phones, GPS, cell infrastructure) is already in place for most people.
- gruez 1y ago>It's also probably cheaper than the extra physical infrastructure needed for inductive loops, given that all the necessary equipment (phones, GPS, cell infrastructure) is already in place for most people. Assuming the procurement/contracting for said app is done competently, which seems questionable for most governments. Moreover even if it's cheaper, surely some sort of camera/sensor setup would be safer than drivers fiddling with an app?
- Ajedi32 1y agoI'm guessing they wouldn't need to fiddle with an app; the software would just automatically signal their approach based on GPS/navigation info. I agree theoretically a camera + machine-learning based system could work just as well; I've always wondered why that wasn't standard on traffic lights these days given that the hardware would probably cost a few hundred dollars (if procurement for said hardware were done competently, which I suppose as you said, it probably wouldn't be).
- iamtheworstdev 1y agowhy would you need machine learning? just detect a minimum of one bright light source, assume it's a headlight, and switch the lights. What the worse a false positive could do? this doesn't need AI
- Ajedi32 1y agoComparable systems based on inductive loops work during the day. A design based on detecting headlights wouldn't. Software/compute is cheap and as you said reliability is not a safety concern.
- elric 1y agoFlemish person here: no one here understands it either. Probably CV-driven development for someone...
- dotancohen 1y agoOr the meeting started with the open question: "How can we get our citizens to give us 24-hour location data on their whereabouts? How could we possibly spin it as something beneficial to them?"
- Scoundreller 1y agoSo, uhhhhhhh, gps spoofing time?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ToDougie 1y ago> I don't understand why they need apps for this either. Data.
- ergsef 1y agoYou would be amazed how bad drivers are at actually hitting the correct stopping position for the inductive loops in the ground that sense cars. When I'm on my bike stopped on a small side street I often try and gesture for drivers to pull up so their car is over the vehicle sensor in the pavement and the light changes faster. Drivers have gotten angry and yelled at me for giving them a little "inch up" hand gesture.
- Aurornis 1y ago> The infrastructure should be in place to detect cars approaching from the side street. Once they have the ability to detect cars, it's simple to assume everyone would be requesting a green light. Historically, traffic control systems detected cars with sensors embedded in the road. The cars had to come to the light to be detected. It's the most reliable method, but it requires the car to nearly come to a stop first to get to the right spot. It's easy to imagine more complicated computer vision or radar systems detecting cars. These are orders of magnitude more complex, though. When cities install traffic infrastructure they want to leave it alone and service it as infrequently as possible. It also needs to last for decades before replacement. Modern systems that are cheap, robust, and can detect traffic from a distance throughout different conditions like rain, snow, dark, and fog reliably are a recent invention. It's going to be decades before these are widely retrofitted to long-standing infrastructure.
- Twirrim 1y agoWe've had traffic lights like that in the UK for ages. Where I am in the States these days, they're very common. There's one very effective one that manages my turning from the residential street onto to the main road. I was getting irritated at the weekend because I came across some lights that didn't have sensors. 5 cars stuck waiting at the lights for literally no one. Of course, the other thing they do in the UK is use small roundabouts, that can handle a fair amount of traffic nice and smoothly.
- K0balt 1y agoI’m guessing that with location access they can probably do it without adding any infrastructure, just an API.
- tarentel 1y agoThis is more or less how it worked in the small town where I grew up in the US as well. At night, almost all the lights would flash yellow from around 1AM til 6AM? I think. It's been a long time since I lived there.
- tikhonj 1y agoOh, I remember this used to happen in Berkeley. Not sure if it stopped, or if I just stopped walking outside late enough to see it :P It totally makes sense as an approach. No point in having normal traffic light cycles on low-traffic streets at 2 AM.
- mystraline 1y agoA city nearby here in America also does something similar. After 10:30pm through 6am, the main road's lights go blinking yellow, and the side road's lights to blinking red. Its basically easy to get around, since most lights are now a yield or stop. No app goofiness or any of that. And it has been implementable for decades.
- hungmung 1y agoIn America we have an even lower tech solution: if there's no traffic and nobody to see, you pretend the light is green.
- psunavy03 1y agoIn other parts of America there are these things called red-light cameras . . .
- rob74 1y agoOr these people called policemen who will be overjoyed that you are making their boring night shift more interesting, not to mention rewarding. I only got ticketed by police twice in my entire life, and one of those times was when I ignored a red light (on a bicycle!) in the late evening at a big but completely deserted intersection. Then I learned that in Germany cyclists have to pay the same fine as motorists (100 € + processing fee + 1 "penalty point" on your driver's license if you have one, even if you're not driving a car), while pedestrians only pay 10 €.
- smeej 1y agoI was looking for this response! I am in one of those parts of America where the complete absence of other cars is interpreted as a green light, even if nobody bothers to set them to turn to blinking red/yellow during the low traffic hours.
- reverendsteveii 1y agoI know several intersections in America that do this. They go to a flashing red light because we do have an occasional problem with citizens who don't know that a traffic light that's not operating is an all-way stop sign, but the theory is the same.
- Aurornis 1y ago> In Germany, there's an established but much more low tech approach to this problem: simply turn off the traffic lights at night! Many American cities do this, too. Well, they don't turn the lights off. They flash to distinguish this state from the power being off. It's more common in smaller cities.
- daveoc64 1y agoAre there still pedestrian crossings? That's often overlooked with ideas like this.
- rob74 1y agoThis is only done when traffic is light enough so you can normally cross without any danger. But now that you mention it, there is one of these lights nearby with buttons for pedestrians, next time I'm there after 8 pm I could check if it comes back to life when you press a button...
- beAbU 1y agoI remember learning in primary school about 25 years ago about this new-fangled technology where they embed sensors in the road surface that allows the traffic light to change its cycle based on the traffic patterns.