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posted by janrinok on Saturday August 01 2015, @06:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the someone's-got-to-stop dept.

the push towards V2I—vehicle to infrastructure—communications systems is meant to help solve this problem, timing traffic signals for optimum traffic flow. V2I is still some years away, but in the meantime BMW has released an iOS app that achieves some of the same functions, at least for drivers in Oregon (Portland and Eugene) or Salt Lake City.

The EnLighten app—which has actually been available as a standalone iOS and Android app for a while now—lives on a driver's iOS phone but runs through BMW's iDrive infotainment system. When running, the iDrive screen shows the status of the nearest traffic signal ahead, along with a real-time prediction of when the light will change.

EnLighten, which has been developed by a company called Connected Signals, works by interfacing with the city's traffic management system, then combines that data with the car's location (via GPS). And although the BMW version of Enlighten currently only works in three cities in the US, the standalone app (which doesn't integrate with a car's infotainment system) will also function in Las Vegas, Arcadia and Walnut Creek in California, and Christchurch, New Zealand, with more cities planned for the near future.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by iamjacksusername on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:46PM

    by iamjacksusername (1479) on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:46PM (#216836)

    A lot of the lights around me have, what I like to call, "Fuck you timing." As in, I can see the lights all the way down the street but they are all timed to turned red just as I get to them. Supposedly, it has to do with keeping the speed down or some such nonsense. However, most of the roads with these light timing tend to be 4-lane divided highways (at least where I live). I really think that there are a group of people in this country that hate it when people go fast; it short circuits their brain. They want everyone to drive at the speed they believe is "safe" not the speed the road is designed for. They get jobs in city government so they can wag their fingers and make commuter roads slightly more hell-ish because all you kids drive too fast! So we end up with lights timed to make you stop. At every single one.

    Because fuck you that's why.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:57PM (#216847)

    I thought keeping speed down and cars bunched up away from real problem ...um... Bunch spots, was kinda what traffic engineering was all about. Steady flow is fine until a hub and such.

    In my younger days, spent a few nights out by the local large intersection. Our conclusion was that lights were set to change, to red for the approaching cars, even when the other way had noone coming. If it was on a timer, sure wasnt a regular beat.

  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:20PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:20PM (#216853) Journal

    Politics drives a lot of light timing and placement. Many merchants want cars waiting at intersections where their stores are. In recent years, red light camera revenuers got involved and screwed the lights up more. Then there are the pseudo engineers who think that safety should trump all other concerns, and wish for a ridiculously low national speed limit of only 20 mph or some such. Or they have some other crazy agenda. Since they can't have what they want, they can at least gum up grid with badly set up and timed traffic lights.

    It was politics that drove the creation of the numbered highway system in the US in 1926. Before that, roads were named, and we had the Lincoln Highway, Dixie Highway, Bee Line Highway, and so on. It didn't take long for private interests to warp the system. They began to use their routes to extract levies from local merchants and entire towns. If a town didn't pay, the route could be altered to bypass that town. They were also interested in extracting more money from travelers, and deliberately altering a route to lengthen it seemed an obvious way to do that. Travelers soon banded together to fight back by among other things, sharing information about routes. Finally, the numbered highway system was created to stop those kinds of shenanigans.

  • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:57PM

    by Snotnose (1623) on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:57PM (#216860)

    We've got roads around here where you know your light is about to go green because the one 100 yards down the road just turned yellow. I avoid those roads like the plague (Fletcher Parkway by Parkway Plaza, I'm looking at you).

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
  • (Score: 2) by Francis on Saturday August 01 2015, @10:11PM

    by Francis (5544) on Saturday August 01 2015, @10:11PM (#216865)

    It's probably because you're not traveling in the direction they were optimized for. Around here if you're going north or south you're more likely to hit the lights than if you're going east or west. The reason being that the whole system is set up to help people go north or south and fucking the other people.

    I'm starting to see interesting things like variable speed speed limit signs that change in response to the traffic conditions. Adjusting the speed so that the cars can keep driving rather than bunching up as much. The whole traffic light timing thing is a huge problem as you've got dozens and dozens of different intersections that all have to work together to work efficiently. And in many places, the adjustments can't be made from a centralized location, they have to be done in some of the boxes you see by the roads.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @12:29AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @12:29AM (#216898)

    >the speed they believe is "safe" not the speed the road is designed for

    Dude, I know this will upset you, but the speed that is safe is the speed that the road was designed for. It is a myth that roads are designed for higher speeds - any design speed values above the posted speeds are a safety factor; take it away and you lose the safety factor. And no, you're not a good enough driver to exceed these speeds.

    Note that these speed values are what the engineers worked with. Don't confuse those with the speeds that idiot politicians have muddled with to buy votes.

    • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday August 02 2015, @10:08AM

      by TheRaven (270) on Sunday August 02 2015, @10:08AM (#216972) Journal
      The roads in Salt Lake City were designed for 6-gang ox carts, so I guess that makes their design speed about 10-20 miles per hour? I suspect that you can go down them a lot faster safely though. Of course, Salt Lake City traffic lights also have a completely insane phasing (or did when I was there 7 years ago, maybe it's changed now), which seems to be designed to increase delays and pollution (successfully, judging by the smog that you can see over the city from the mountains).
      --
      sudo mod me up
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @08:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @08:44AM (#216966)

    Because angry drivers are safe drivers!