Traffic Lights Getting A Fourth Color In The Future?
Experts at North Carolina State University are researching the practical application of adding a white color to traffic lights that would have the capability to wirelessly mobilize autonomous vehicles on the road to control the flow of traffic.
Driving is fundamentally changing. The transition to electric vehicles is progressing with each passing year and humans are no longer the only ones sitting behind an automobile’s steering wheel. In a future where it is certain that human drivers will be sharing the road with autonomous vehicles, traffic lights with a fourth hue may become a reality.
Before one can understand why traffic lights may soon be equipped with a fourth color, it’s important to understand that the capabilities of autonomous or self-driving vehicles come with both advantages and disadvantages. For instance, autonomous vehicles have the potential to alleviate strain on domestic supply chains by shouldering a large part of the long-distance driving that commercial truck drivers are responsible for.
Companies like Walmart have already been running tests to integrate a fleet of autonomous trucks into their workforce. Additionally, Amazon has begun to slowly roll out a driverless taxi service. On the flip side, autonomous driving technologies are still very much in their infancy and there are obvious flaws and risks that have emerged in association with the implementation of this technology.
As an example, the full-self driving feature integrated into some Tesla models has been at the forefront of public criticism. Most recently, Tesla’s problematic full-self-driving capability made headlines after a vehicle using it fatally slammed into a fire truck. Consequently, the intrinsic fallacies and potential hazards linked to autonomous driving are what prompted North Carolina State University researchers to suggest adding a fourth color to traffic lights in the coming years.
So how exactly would this extra color on traffic lights work? According to Science Alert, the experts at North Carolina State University explained that a white traffic light color would be added which would have the capability to mobilize autonomous vehicles to control the flow of traffic. The white traffic light would be equipped with wireless Bluetooth technology and would engage when the number of autonomous vehicles driving on the road at any given time exceeds a certain threshold.
When the white color is triggered, it would negate the green, red, and yellow signals. Then, instead of following a traffic lights’ signals in their traditional manner, human drivers would then simply follow the autonomous vehicle ahead of them. Traffic lights would return to standard green-yellow-red operation when the number of self-driving vehicles dips back below a certain number.
Early data compiled at the University suggests that adding white signals to traffic lights could potentially optimize the flow of traffic even down to fuel consumption. Considering the proposed advantages, adding a white color to traffic lights sounds promising. However, a multitude of uncertainties and unanswered questions remain.
While technology theoretically can facilitate this new traffic light system, practical implementation is still not yet a reality. Additionally, there is bound to be pushback from human drivers should something like this ever go into effect, despite the potential benefits it could have. Lastly, there will likely have to be some form of lobbying to secure government funding when technology reaches the point where white traffic lights mobilizing autonomous vehicles is a viable reality.
Overall, human drivers will not be seeing white traffic lights anytime soon. However, as more autonomous vehicles navigate public roads and as technology continues to progress, driving will likely look very different in the decades to come. Perhaps drivers can hope that at the very least traffic jams will become a thing of the past.
