According to a 2022 study, waiting at red lights in your car produces 28 million tons of CO2 each year in the United States. Google is tackling the “Green Light” project, which, with Maps, will improve city traffic using artificial intelligence.
When they started in 1998, the creators of Google set themselves a rule: “Don’t be evil”. We will be able to judge whether the firm has respected this adage since, in any case, it has launched an initiative around road traffic and Google Maps, which could “help humanity”. The goal is not only to make life easier for motorists, who waste time and money on the gasoline consumed by a stationary vehicle. According to a 2022 study by the company Inrix, just waiting at red lights produces 28 million tons of carbon dioxide each year in the United States. And city traffic would be 29 times more polluting than on the highways.
This is what Google hopes to change with its Green Light project, the idea of which is attributed to the wife of a researcher at the Internet giant, who spoke to it over dinner two years ago. years. The principle is to use all the data generated by Google Maps and its “traffic” option, which indicates slowdowns and traffic jams in direct time. With Maps being used by tens of millions of people around the world, Google figured there was something to be explored.
Synchronization of city lights entrusted to an AI
The Green Light project is based on the Android system, invented by Google and installed on three billion phones. This provides prodigious amounts of data. This famous data will feed artificial intelligence which will analyze traffic patterns and traffic lights at intersections in a large city. The AI then suggests optimizing the rhythm of traffic lights by coordinating them with those of other intersections, for example extending a green light by a few seconds at a specific time.
One of Google’s executives explains that AI will create green waves to make traffic flow more smoothly. Potentially, stops at red lights would decrease by 30% while greenhouse gas emissions would drop by 10%. The advantage for cities is that the system does not revolutionize the existing infrastructure. There is no need to install specific sensors and therefore the innovation costs relatively little.
Already in practice in test cities
In practice, Google works with 12 cities around the world, Seattle, Budapest, Manchester, Hamburg, Rio de Janeiro, Haifa, Abu Dhabi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bali and Jakarta. Each of these cities presents very different configurations and characteristic challenges. In Manchester for example, the solutions proposed by the Green Light project are not necessarily adapted to the size of the bus network or the number of pedestrians.
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But since the system is currently free, the risk is minimal for all these metropolises. Google has also opened a waiting list for other interested municipalities.