

Adaptive Traffic Lights FTW - calebelston
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/traffic-lights-adapt/

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memetichazard
_"It’s a paradoxical effect that occurs in complex systems," says Helbing.
"Surprisingly, delay processes can improve the system altogether. It is a
slower-is-faster effect. You can increase the throughput - speed up the whole
system - if you delay single processes within the system at the right time,
for the right amount of time."_

Braess' Paradox! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27_paradox>

Alright, so not quite - one is talking about introducing delays and the other
is about the availability of options to rational players, but everyone should
know a little bit about it.

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jrwoodruff
It's about time somebody did a study like this. I don't know how many times
I've sat at a red light with no cross traffic thinking about how much gas is
wasted in such situations.

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dangrossman
Near my home (southeastern Pennsylvania), if you pull up to an intersection
and there's no traffic in the opposing direction, the light changes so you get
a near-immediate green. It works great at night when nobody else is near the
intersections.

I noticed the same thing when I lived in Seattle for a few months.

I doubt the signals are communicating with each other, but there is definitely
some deployment of signals with sensors to detect whether a car is waiting on
each side of the intersection.

