A trial of connected vehicle technology has begun in Manchester, which is being supported by publicly available data from Transport Research Laboratory’s (TRL) traffic management software, named Scoot.
The data will be used to support the development of an app to help reduce waiting times at traffic lights.
KL Systems, a transport and engineering consultancy, has been brought in to use the data to develop in-vehicle notifications about the period of time until the next light change. This was achieved by feeding real time traffic light information into vehicles, which can reportedly be done without additional hardware installations.
The app was designed to then notify the driver about how long they have until lights change and the optimal speed to drive at in order to cut red light waiting times, according to KL Systems.
Those behind the trial hope to deploy this technology as part of a wider scheme looking at the utility of in-vehicle alerts for a range of applications, including warning motorists about road hazards.
This type of project is called a Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory (GLOSA) deployment.
“Once we had created the app for displaying the information to the driver and then successfully linked it up to interpret the data that Scoot 7 was firing into the cloud, there was no need to instal any hardware, or take any down afterwards,” said George Brown, founder of KL Systems.
“The open data is still being transmitted, because that’s what Scoot 7 does, and our app continues to work with it.
“When it comes to GLOSA, the potential benefits are massive in terms of journey times, fuel savings and emission reductions, all of it realised by cutting down on the time spent at red lights.
“However, we’re still quite far from seeing GLOSA available to the general public, because we’d need to ensure people can use the system without getting distracted or it encouraging dangerous behaviour such as accelerating excessively to make a green light.
“That risk could be tackled with good system designs that would only inform the driver when they need to slow down rather than speed up.”
TRL claims that its UTC software is designed to work with any hardware and is both simple and cost-effective for all users. The company also says it can offer whole ownership of its product at a rate up to 60% cheaper than other similar softwares on the market.
