A new traffic management system will enable communication between cars and traffic lights to reduce `stop-start' journeys and the inefficiency that causes.
Audi is lending its support to the `Travolution' project, aimed at streamlining urban traffic flow through the interaction of cars and traffic lights to minimise fuel-sapping `stop-start' traffic.
Travolution software will alert Audi drivers when a light is due to change to green, and calculate the speed they should maintain in order to pass through in the green light.
The system will also reduce the duration of your stop at the lights by improving the synchronization and traffic light phasing across the network.
Frustrating, fuel-sapping stops at red lights could soon be the exception rather than the rule, thanks to an initiative being championed by Audi aimed at streamlining urban traffic flow and reducing CO2 emissions.
The experimental `Travolution' system, developed with Audi support by traffic management experts in their German home town of Ingolstadt, will not only improve synchronization and phasing of traffic lights to reduce stopping times, but could also dramatically reduce the number of actual stops needed by creating a communications link between cars and the traffic light network.
Communications modules built into each traffic light will be able to send messages to cars in the vicinity, alerting them to the time remaining until their next green phase. The car's onboard system is then able to calculate what speed the driver should maintain in order to pass through the light during this green phase, and displays this via the car's own Multi Media Interface display.
A network of 46 of the `intelligent' traffic lights has been installed in the center of Ingolstadt. The software they are all linked to will optimize the light phasing to bring stopping times down to a minimum, reducing fuel consumption and pollution in the process.
Of the 46 light gantries, three have been upgraded to enable communication with the specially modified Audi A5 and A6 Avant models provided by Audi as part of the 1.2-million Euro pilot project. A further 20 cars and 50 light installations are to be incorporated as the project evolves.