Traffic

Three weeks after one of Waymo's autonomous vehicles drove itself into a telephone pole for no apparent reason whatsoever (prompting 672 cars recalled), Waymo has released a statement saying its AVs are still 200 to 350% better at avoiding crashes than humans.

A new modular mobile flyover bridge allows vehicles to drive overtop of stretches of highway roadwork, instead of waiting to go around them. Known as the ASTRA Bridge, it's intended to make life easier for motorists and safer for roadway workers.

If you're comfortable with the present green, amber, and red traffic lights, be prepared to get uncomfortable. New research suggests that adding a white light will speed up traffic and improve safety for both cars and pedestrians.

No-one enjoys idling in peak-hour traffic, yet scientists have identified that a blood pressure spike during it doesn't come from frustration but from ultrafine particles flowing into the car. And the average 4.5 mm Hg spike lasts for an entire day.

Through its Maps app, Google has access to a monster trove of daily traffic data – and it's using it to provide cities with free, AI-optimized traffic signal timing suggestions that could reduce stop/starts by 30% and intersection emissions by 10%.

In order to optimize traffic flow through city streets, municipalities often install car-counting cameras or other sensors at a few set locations. A new study, however, suggests that using existing bus-mounted cameras may be a better way to go.

In order to optimize traffic flow, many autonomous vehicles communicate with one another and with traffic control systems. Scientists are now suggesting that an extra white light at intersections could help incorporate human drivers into the mix.

By exposing healthy adults to diesel fumes before having their brain activity imaged in an fMRI machine, researchers have shown how traffic pollution can impair brain function, offering evidence of the connection between air quality and cognition.

In a smart and connected world, it's amazing how dumb our traffic lights can be. A new Melbourne project uses AI to crunch an unprecedented amount of live and historical data, hoping to optimize multi-mode traffic flow and influence behavior.

Ordinarily, traffic lights change color in response to predetermined rules and induction loop sensors embedded in the road. According to new research, however, making those lights artificially intelligent may keep traffic flowing faster and smoother.

Researchers at Northwestern University have come up with a new congestion-busting control algorithm for autonomous vehicles, demonstrating its capabilities via a swarm of tiny robots that can assemble into desired shapes within 60 seconds.

Elon Musk revealed over the weekend that a new arm of the tunneling venture, The Boring Company, is in the works for China, a place where his electric car company also happens to be making some inroads. ​​