Traffic Light Optimization - TLO

Inspiration

We thought about how bad traffic congestions are. This caused us to try to find a way to optimize car infrastructure with minimum effort and cost. We looked at traffic lights and saw that most of the solutions are expensive, required constant maintenance or both. We tried to make the opposite.

Solution

Our solution is cheap, requires little maintenance and is extremely easy to deploy.

This is how our algorithm works: we take real-time traffic data from Google Maps and Waze APIs. This is low-resolution data, meaning we only know what the average speed is along a road segment. We don't know individual car locations or speeds. We then run our algorithm on the data and fine-tune the respective traffic lights' schedules. For example, if one lane is busy and another one is less busy, the algorithm will prioritize the busy lane.

So why is it such an important solution?

Since we don't use any hardware at all, our solution is easily deployed, requires little maintenance and is cheap. It can be extremely useful in emerging nations, for example, as the local authorities there don't have the money to build sensors and hardware into junctions. On the other hand, the number of smartphone owners in these countries is growing rapidly, meaning that we can run our algorithm there.

Furthermore, since we optimize traffic lights activity, we help minimize the problem of traffic jams. And traffic jams are really, really bad: 5.7 BILLION human-hours are wasted in the U.S. every year because of traffic congestion, and we're not even talking about the environmental and health hazards it causes. Minimizing traffic jams could increase the productivity of workers in the area (less time wasted in traffic + people come to work less angry after their commute). Even more, it could improve the health of nearby residents and even save lives (less air pollution).

That's why we believe this solution is a necessity in today's ever growing traffic jams. We enable all nations, developing and developed alike, to enjoy the benefits of traffic lights optimization.

Jonathan, Jonathan, Meitar, Amit and Tomer

Built With

• coffeescript
• google-maps
• javascript
• python
• sqlite
• traffic-simulator
• waze