Traffic lights were 1st used in 19th-century England, but the gaslit bulbs were hazardous and prone to explosion.
In 1914, Cleveland
Today’s innovations? Using AI to make our traffic lights smarter.
How it works
Cities often have traffic sensors, while emergency vehicles, public buses, trains, and even our phones are all equipped with GPS. This forms aggregate data about what traffic looks like at any given moment.
LYT gathers all available data in a central cloud-based system, which “allows us to take that information and turn it into a single story,” CEO and founder Tim Menard explained to The Hustle.
That story is like a real-time, bird’s-eye view of the road
But the AI also learns from past traffic patterns. For example, say there’s a city bus that’s off schedule.
LYT’s AI would take:
- Historical information (e.g., how long the bus typically waits at a stop
- Real-time data (i.e., where the bus actually is)
LYT then sets up a “
“Then people who are taking the bus are… less stressed because those buses feel like trains, where they only stop at each bus stop,” Menard said.
A pilot program involving 17 intersections on a San Jose bus route
It works on emergency vehicles, too
In Fremont, California, LYT is being used to improve response time.
Principal transportation engineer Eric Hu
Other benefits include:
- Less pollution from stop-and-go traffic (and increased efficiency in EVs)
- Less overall congestion and reduced wait times for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians
And less stress — especially if you’re not sitting in your car trapped in traffic.
BTW: For more, check out