Filed under: Emerging Technologies, MPG
Video of "naked streets" and how banning stop lights will save gas
The day you simply step into your car and it takes you where you want is not here just yet, but we are giving up control of small things to the vehicle's computer. Take, for example, BMW's Active Cruise Control, which takes control of the car's speed, or Lexus' Advanced Parking Guidance System, which parallel parks your car for you. The video above is a system imagined by Zurich where stop lights are replaced by systems that control the speed of the car. There is no need for a car to stop, only slow down or speed up to allow for the continuous flow of traffic from all directions.
For this system to work, you would need government laws to not only ban traffic lights but place some kind of navigation system in your car. There is already talk of putting GPS in all cars, so don't be surprised if you see this sooner rather than later. As any hypermiler will tell you, slowing down and stopping wastes a lot of gas, so, if a system like this were implemented, the gas savings would be enormous. Maybe we should try it now, without all that fancy technology?
As crazy as it sounds, the idea of banning stop lights and traffic signals, so called "naked streets," is catching on and some people even think it's safer for pedestrians. The idea behind naked streets is drivers will be more aware of pedestrians if there are no signs or signals and the CBC reports a 60 percent drop of pedestrian accidents. This system already exists in many places, as the video below the fold shows, due to a lack of money or just bad planning.
Perhaps someday our grandchildren will ask us "what are stop lights?" for a report in their history class.
Related:
[Source: YouTube]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John Smith 9:14PM (12/12/2007)
You mean less government regulation could actually save more lives/be a good thing?
Don't tell most of the people who post on or read this blog.
You'll destroy their Statist identity.
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Randy 10:23PM (12/12/2007)
Great...so how do I get across the street....run like heck and hope for the best.
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Chris M 11:02PM (12/12/2007)
A nice dream, but the technology is nowhere near ready to handle regular street traffic, including erratic drivers, bicycles and pedestrians.
To implement this anytime soon would require that we do the automation only with properly equipped vehicles on their own special "automated guideways", safely away from the "manual driven" vehicles and pedestrians. Off of the guideway, these cars would be driven just like non-automated cars.
That is a concept known as "dual mode", and could be further improved by providing electrical power while on the guideway.
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Bob R. 11:59PM (12/12/2007)
Don't confuse what you see in the video with "naked streets", which is a term that applies more to local mixed-use streets rather than heavily-used arterials.
There's no way a pedestrian could safely cross the street in the video without some kind of traffic signal or automation which stops all cars in the direction perpendicular to the crosswalk.
However, on a smaller scale, there are promising studies of local "naked streets" in which all users are mindful of other users.
- Bob R.
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scatter 7:10AM (12/13/2007)
But John, in order to implement this it requries state intervention. Shock horror!
There's a bunch of towns in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden experimenting with this and even the King's Road in London, which is very busy road full of pedestrians is going down this route.
Makes a lot of sense to me - it goes some way to bursting that dangerous sensory bubble that most drivers experience as soon as they step into their car.
http://www.brake.org.uk/index.php?p=932
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Ian7 8:30AM (12/13/2007)
Back during the first gas crisis in the 70's, I remember reading a report that said nationwide fuel economy would go up something like 8% just by proper synchronisation of existing traffic lights. With 30-year-smarter computers today, surely that number (or better) is immediately achievable ???
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ChrisL 8:32AM (12/13/2007)
Funny, you need less technology and more driver awareness to make this work. It already does in some cities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Doy_7sOoM
If the link doesn't work, try "india traffic" on you tube and see what I mean.
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Dave 10:03AM (12/13/2007)
Your "for this system to work" paragraph should be much longer. You would also need to eliminate the concept of the anomaly, the blown tired, the failed brake, animal in the road, human animal in the road and on and on...
Trains are automated but we don't run them that close together. The consequences are too great when you consider that a simple fender bender would become an enormous pileup.
I'm not the type of guy to say "it'll never work", but it would require a very tightly controlled right of way.
As far as eliminating signs and hoping drivers will then be forced to be more aware of the road at all times, I can't think of a more ridiculous concept. There is a reason it is dangerous to cross the road - with or without pedestrian controls: drivers don't always pay attention (brakes fail too) and the consequences are too great for the pedestrian!
LL You make quite a leap from active cruise control to sailing through busy intersections under computer guidance. Active cruise looks around for itself, it doesn't rely on data from a network or other cars. It also doesn't shrink following distance, or lateral distance, down to what the video shows.
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GoodCheer 10:38AM (12/13/2007)
My understanding is that replacing traffic lights with rotaries is a good way to speed up traffic in many cases. Of course they tend to not work if there is a strong dominant direction of traffic flow (i.e., it tends to be hard to get into the roundabout from a non-dominant street).
I've commuted through a couple that seemed to be very effective in a variety of conditions, and of course you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one in the UK.
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GoodCheer 10:41AM (12/13/2007)
Of course trying to cross the street at a rotary, or navigating one on a bicycle can be a truly hair-raising experience...
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Chris 12:40PM (12/13/2007)
More traffic circles PLEASE!
Chris in TN
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AlexP 12:56PM (12/13/2007)
lol, "traffic circles".
They're called roundabouts and they would be over 9000 times less dangerous than simply eliminating stop lights.
We're implementing them as much as possible in Quebec.
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Brandon 4:10PM (12/13/2007)
Roundabouts are great, once people figure out how the hell they work. Here in Anchorage we have one (why just one? Beats me, don't ask), and it works like a dream. Move in, move out and on your way.
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kballs 6:58PM (12/13/2007)
Roundabouts suck if:
1. they are smaller than 300ft in diameter (small = slow speed and backing up of traffic)
2. they are on streets that have widely varying traffic loads (i.e. rush hour) because they back up for miles in one direction, while in the other direction nobody has to wait their turn (all directions are given equal priority no matter what the traffic load in any direction - unless you're to the right of the load, in which case you get de-prioritized and stuck).
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Tom 7:20AM (1/14/2008)
Removing traffic signals would work great IF road speeds were reduced. Removing traffic signals while maintaining streets that are posted 30mph(50kph) or more and have high traffic flow would not work. It would become virtually impossible to cross traffic either in a vehicle or as a pedestrian.
If you look at the videos of third world intersections that have no traffic lights you will notice that traffic on these highly congested roads almost never tops 20 or 25 miles per hour.
Also in Europe were they are starting to remove traffic control devices in towns they have low speed traffic to contend with. A similiar situation exists in large parking lots in both the US and other countries where there are remarkably few accidents despite high numbers of autos and pedestrians. But you don't see people generally going more that 15mph in parking lots.
A study that would be interesting to do would be to compare overall travel time on roads that currently have traffic lights and higher speeds with roads that have low speeds but no traffic lights. Currently on traffic lighted roads you might have a maximum speed of 30mph but since 1/3 of the time you are stopped, and 1/3 of the time slowing down or speeding up, and only 1/3 of the time (sometimes at best) going 30mph, your average speed is only 15mph. Whereas on a road with a speed of 15-20mph you might spend virtually all of time at 15-20mph. With a higher overall average speed. I think that overall traffic speeds would be remarkably similiar. With a massive reduction in overall fuel usage, and traffic fatalities.
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