Audi At It Again

First, one of the most beautiful cars in the world. Now this. With Audi, it just doesn’t stop.

But, for once, that could be a good thing for cars.
In Ingolstadt, Germany, Audi is testing 15 cars in a car-to-traffic light communications system, where drivers will know how much time there is until a light switches. Then, the car provides a recommended speed to travel at (or it can travel that way itself via cruise control) so it times the green light perfectly.

“Imagine that you are currently 150 metres away from a traffic light in your A4 allroad Quattro,” Audi engineer Cornelius Menig explains. “The light is red, but will change to green in 15 seconds. If you now continue driving at 50 km/h, you will arrive at the light during the last few seconds of the red phase and have to stop, only to immediately start off again. If you reduce your speed to 35 km/h, however, the light will be green when you get there.”

By decreasing idling at reds, it is expected that CO2 emissions at traffic lights will decrease by roughly 15%. In Germany, which has about two and a half the population of Canada, that’s an equivalent of 900 million litres of gasoline per year.

Timing the light sounds dangerous, but this technology would also prevent vehicles from running a red light.

Traffic lights and cars are equipped with WiFi and 3G so they can communicate, and the traffic light will emit details about the colour of the light and how quickly it will change. These lights were also assigned new algorithms of light-switching that behave better with the new technology. Now, instead of stopping at an average of every four lights, it’s become five. Even when a car needs to be stopped at a red, the car will provide a timer saying when it’ll switch back to green, calming the driver. Vehicles will also receive access to data about traffic jams, so you no longer have to wait for the radio news update.

As if all this wasn’t enough, the car can hold the driver’s credit card information, so gas station and parking lot fees can be paid directly from the car. The car will also know how many parking spots are left in the building.

A date of release for the technology hasn’t been mentioned, but it’s all insight into a near and exciting future. Little is better than new technology that optimizes efficiency and environmental care.

That’s why Audi calls it “travolution”. It’s also why an initiative project called “Germany — Land of Ideas” awarded Ingolstadt “Selected Landmark 2009” for participating in the project.•