Google's Project Green Light: Going Green, All the Way

type

status

date

slug

summary

Features of Project Green Light

Using AI to optimize traffic lights: Green Light analyzes traffic flow data to identify opportunities to optimize traffic light timing, thereby reducing stop-and-go traffic.

Easy: Cities don’t need to buy new equipment or software; they can simply adjust existing traffic light settings based on the recommendations.

Fast results: City engineers can implement recommendations within minutes, leveraging existing infrastructure for optimization.

Reduced Parking: The project has the potential to reduce parking times by up to 30%, improving traffic flow.

Lower emissions: Reduce emissions by up to 10% at intersections, improving air quality.

Widely used: It has been tested in many cities around the world, including Rio de Janeiro, Seattle, Bangalore and Boston.

Project Green Light has been tested in many cities

How Project Green Light Works

Understanding Intersections

Existing traffic light parameters: Through long-term mapping work in cities around the world, Green Light is able to infer existing traffic light parameters, including: cycle length, transition time, green light split time (i.e. right-of-way time and sequence), coordination and sensor operation.

Measuring traffic trends

Traffic flow model: Create a model to understand the flow of traffic at an intersection. This helps identify typical traffic patterns, including patterns of starts and stops, average wait times, coordination (or lack thereof) between adjacent intersections, and how traffic light schedules change throughout the day.

Recommendations for cities

AI generates optimization suggestions : Use AI to identify possible traffic light timing adjustments. Share these adjustments as actionable suggestions to city traffic engineers, who review and approve them and implement them in as little as 5 minutes, leveraging the city’s existing policies and tools.

Analyze the impact

Evaluate and report : Measure the number of stops saved for drivers and the impact on traffic patterns after implementing the recommendations. Then calculate the climate impact of these changes using industry-standard models. Share these results with partner cities and monitor them continuously for future adjustments as necessary.

Dashboard of Project Green Light

Since the first pilot in 2021, the team has tested more and more intersections, made more accurate predictions, and brought the “green light” system to more than a dozen cities around the world, including Rio de Janeiro, Seattle, Bangalore, and most recently, Boston. The team has also developed a comprehensive dashboard to easily share recommendations and analysis results with partner cities, while continuing to monitor any new necessary changes.

The dashboard provides city-specific actionable recommendations, showing the trend of support for each recommendation, and users can choose to accept or reject the recommendation. After implementing the recommendation, the dashboard displays an impact analysis report.

Dashboard of Project Green Light — **Dashboard of** Project Green Light

🔥

No More Performance Bottlenecks