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Audi claims to have developed a new software system to eliminate the need to wait at traffic lights.

Dubbed, ‘Travelution’, the system is intended to reduce the time spent at red lights by communicating with the car’s on-board control system, calculating the speed the driver needs to maintain to pass through the next set of traffic lights on green.

Currently, 46 traffic lights in Audi’s home town of Ingolstadt have been equipped with the system, which is working with a specially-e...Read the full article

If I've understood this correctly, wouldn't everyone need to being using this system for it to work effectively?  I mean, imagine you're sitting behind an Audi at traffic lights when they turn green and the driver sets off towards the next lights, 100 metres ahead, at 15 mph.  It's gonna drive you nuts if you don't understand what's going on!

 We'll have to watch them with the same caution as Micras or Volvos and exercise the lost art of overtaking. Surely the owners will have no excuse for the general fist shaking or light flashing because they willingly purchased a machine to crawl between sets of lights,(Indicated by a very large badge on the bootlid, I hope), rather than going like the clappers to try and beat the next change...Has anybody been to Reims?

Great idea, wrong direction of data flow, now a device that turn the lights green when YOU get to them, now we are talking!

Forget the hi-falutin' technology. Scrap the t-lights and go back to roundabouts - or simply let the drivers make the decision as to when to cross. In these hard-pressed times, we need simple solutions, not expensive ones. T-lights just stop people from making progress. Hans Monderman would have had a thing or two to say about this, I'm sure...

BigApple:

Great idea, wrong direction of data flow, now a device that turn the lights green when YOU get to them, now we are talking!

Spot on, BigApple;  How many times have we been stuck at a red light in the middle of the night with no oncoming traffic.  At least in some parts of Europe they cycle to flashing amber.  I think the option of turning left at a red light should also be adopted - that would cut down on a lot of congestion at a set of lights.