‘World’s Smartest Intersection’ in Detroit: Like Adding a Smartphone on Traffic Lights
What if a traffic light could let drivers know people or bicyclists were crossing unseen around the corner? Or stay green long enough for semis and buses to get through and not cause a traffic jam? It happened in Detroit at “The World’s Smartest Intersection.”
Imagine a traffic light that stays yellow long enough for cyclists or pedestrians to get across, no matter how many of them there are.
Or a light that stays green so a city bus to make up enough time to get back on schedule.
Or one that even allows semi and delivery trucks through so they don’t cause a traffic jam, while saving the vehicles enough fuel that companies are willing to pay for the service.
That happened this summer on Detroit’s Larned Avenue.
The company Miovision created what it calls the “world’s smartest intersection” on Larned, placing every traffic light tech upgrade imaginable on a section of the avenue.
Miovision’s Dave Bullock tells WDET’s Quinn Klinefelter the pilot project began as a way to fix traffic lights in Detroit.
But it may become a mainstay across all of Michigan.
