Our Future with no Traffic Lights

MIT is developing, with the introduction of autonomous cars, a new system of roads with no traffic lights, to reduce congestion. Watch the videos…

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETHZ), and the Italian National Research Council (CNR) have developed slot-based intersections that could replace traditional traffic lights, significantly reducing queues and delays.

This idea is based on a scenario where sensor-laden vehicles pass through intersections by communicating and remaining at a safe distance from each other, rather than grinding to a halt at traffic lights.

This approach based on slot-based intersections is flexible and can be designed to accommodate pedestrian and bicycle crossing with vehicular traffic.

The model provides a performance breakthrough: all safety requirements being equal, traffic efficiency is doubled with respect to current state-of-the-art traffic lights. With today’s traffic volumes, queues would vanish and travel delays would be cut to almost zero.