IBM has filed a patent application for a smart traffic light that will be able to automatically stop and start vehicle engines.

 

The system will reportedly be able to receive location information from vehicles waiting at red lights to determine if a queue has formed.

 

If the time left for the lights to go green is beyond a set threshold, the traffic light will then send signals to switch off vehicle engines. When the light turns green a notification will be sent to start the engine to the first vehicle in the queue, then the second vehicle and so on down the queue.

 

“The patent application considers that drivers mostly don’t stop the engines at traffic signals, which results in fuel being wasted,” Solar Feeds website reported.

 

The proposed system will gather data from diverse sources - signal clocks, GPS, traffic load information, cameras and sensors embedded at the intersections. The communications side of the system would also be varied, possibly using Wi-Fi, cellular and/or satellite.