Concept: Traffic Lights

[Nintensity]

http://gizmodo.com/5694987/concept-t...h-a-sand-glass

You ever find yourself stuck at a traffic light that'll just never turn green? Doesn't it feel like forever? If traffic lights used this this concept LED Sand Glass, you'll know exactly how much time is left. Here's how it works:

Concept Traffic Light Shows How Much Time Is Left Through A Sand Glass
It's an incredibly simple idea: LED lights trickle down in a virtual sand glass that countdowns how much more Red and Green there will be. When it approaches 3 seconds left, the LEDs switch to yellow and give you an exact count on what's left.

Could it work? Maybe. But how it turns yellow before it turns green AND red could be a little confusing (though some traffic lights already do that, so maybe not!).

Although its an interesting idea, It's something that I know won't be implemented in our time. It ruins consistency.

I'm in the middle of a heated discussion regarding countdowns. Do you, drivers, prefer countdowns leading from green->red? Or does it make you anxious?

Do you think countdowns, in general make you anxious? Or does it help you anticipate whatever that come next?



In reference to the above image, I always look at this when driving, although I've had some people tell me those are for walking. As I driver, this helps me a lot to know when a stale green light will change. It makes me more comfortable in the sense that I know what will happen next, and what I should do (start slowing down, speed a little faster, etc.)

What is your intake on this?

[flagella]

useless

[choda]

I think the prepare to stop and ready will confuse lots of fobs

[taylor192]

Originally Posted by Nintensity

I'm in the middle of a heated discussion regarding countdowns. Do you, drivers, prefer countdowns leading from green->red? Or does it make you anxious?

Do you think countdowns, in general make you anxious? Or does it help you anticipate whatever that come next?

In reference to the above image, I always look at this when driving, although I've had some people tell me those are for walking. As I driver, this helps me a lot to know when a stale green light will change. It makes me more comfortable in the sense that I know what will happen next, and what I should do (start slowing down, speed a little faster, etc.)

What is your intake on this?

I too look for the flashing hand or the pedestrian countdown.

I like the concept, yet it misses what you're using the pedestrian signal for. A traffic signal has 3 phases:
- green
- yellow
- red

By using the "don't walk" signal you're effectively adding a 4th phase:
- green-walk
- green-don't walk
- yellow
- red

The hour glasses don't add this extra phase, they effectively just give you a countdown of the 3 phases.

Consider this: I'm far away (like 30-60 secs) and can see the green hour glass is full. Now I have more information to make a choice: I can speed up hoping to make the light. If I don't have that information, I have no choice to make to speed up.

It would still be nice to have that additional 5-10 secs phase as advance notice the yellow is coming. European traffic signals have this 4th phase:
green
green-yellow
yellow
red

They can even have a 5th phase to indicate the red is about to turn green, so put down your cell phones and start paying attention:
red-yellow

I think this is a far better system, and easier to implement on our existing traffic signals.

[lgman]

does the beeping/chirping on the side walks make people anxious?

I don't get how this would be considered a safety upgrade. Number and Sounds are for visually impaired pedestrians to walk across busy streets, not to help the driver's daily 0-60. For higher speed areas and lights posted after blind corners there are prepared to stop amber lights a good distance before the light turns red.

[Dragon-88]

We need some sort of teaching where the driver learns our rules of the road. Instead of dumbing down to their rules... Honestly how hard is it to understand a stop light..

[GFunk]

Originally Posted by choda

I think the prepare to stop and ready will confuse lots of fobs

Funny you say that, they already have this system (not the hourglass but the countdown) implemented in a lot of places where these fobs are from.

[The_AK]

sure as hell would help on granville and king edward, worst intersection in the history of vancouver

[FN-2199]

Richmond would be so confused.

[johny]

the hand coutdown is great. I always watch em. in the same direction it tells you if you need to prepare to stop (0-5 secs) or you have lots of time and don't need to worry. and watching the other way will tell you when your red is going to change (exect for turn signal intersections)


before they had counters I always watched for walk vs don't walk. I think most intersections were 10 secs don't walk before the light would change. but been a couple years since I looked for that.

the top pic looks great as it's still a round red light, and dumb people would still understand. the sandglass would just confuse everyone.

[mmmk]

the bottom 3 make sense, for the top half of circle...all that is needed is RED

[JesseBlue]

i say just get rid of some stop lights/pedestrian lights. some are bunched in too much
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[tonyvu]

i think the hourglass concept is pretty clever

[RevRav]

repost
http://www.revscene.net/forums/new-s...s-t630662.html

[chris walter]

I think the countdown to go is a bad idea. Some douche will see he has 2 seconds left, rev up his car and dump the clutch. Racing into the intersection as another idiot comes flying through the cross street
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[orange7]

kool

[Great68]

I think this would be a great idea.

This would be especially helpful if you don't think you've tripped the sensor.

[geeknerd]

I think its useless.
The variables for a Green light shouldnt exist. Given that a driver is following the laws, a green light always means GO and not "hurry up." The duration of our current orange lights are calculated specifically for that intersection + speed limit etc so if ur going for a green light and it turns orange, it will give u the right amount of time to either go through it, OR make a safe stop.

How i learned to drive was, when a light turns Green from Red, I should only GO when its safe. So given a orange light before it turns green is quite useless. Im still gonna check if its safe to go or not, once its green.

And all our intersections have a short second where every light is red, giving some slack anyways(right? not sure on this but i think so...)

People just need to learn how to use their brains while driving.

[EmperorIS]

really?? we seriously need this shit to know when to go and when not too

wouldn't it be ALOT safer just slowing down when its stale green and stop when its yellow

or don't walk across or beat the hand signals when its blinking ... these things will just give assholes more information on how much they need to gas the car in order to beat the light

[RRxtar]

as cool of an idea as it is it would just cause problems

if someone is 8 seconds away and they see the lights going to change in 5 seconds, they are going to hammer down to make the light <--- unsafe


and as for the redlight countdown, i just watch the cross traffic light. when it goes yellow i know to get ready to go. but i will admit, theres way too many drivers on the road who appear to be surprized when the light turns green. and that drives me nuts when its an advanced left turn that goes green and the first person takes 5 seconds to figure out how to get moving.

[BLUETIGER]

what we really need is a laser gun or rifle on top of the traffic light.. THAT will get ppl to wake the fuck up

[goo3]

Originally Posted by RRxtar

as cool of an idea as it is it would just cause problems

if someone is 8 seconds away and they see the lights going to change in 5 seconds, they are going to hammer down to make the light <--- unsafe

It could make it safer because you're making the go/no-go (in)decision zone smaller.. in any case, it's something that needs to be tested out to see how every type of driver reacts to it.

[Grandmaster TSE]

i don't think it will be very effective