Remember the last time you had to slam on the breaks at a succession of frustratingly ill-timed red lights?
By Adam Kveton
Or hit the gas lest that green light in the distance turn yellow — and disrupt your flow — before you got to the intersection?
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Nicole Arranz lights up whenever she sees or hears children visiting Perley Health’s east-end Ottawa campus. “My mom loves kids, and being around kids brings life to her,” said Josée
It would have helped to be able to see a few second into the future, wouldn’t it?
That’s just what the city’s traffic department will give a select few truckers as part of a connected-vehicle pilot project funded by the provincial and federal governments.
The project will test whether giving truckers a heads-up on upcoming traffic-light changes might help them save fuel, thereby reducing emissions, said Greg Kent manager of traffic management for the city.
“This is an opportunity to see how our system performs in what is coming up in the future of transportation,” said Kent.
While technology such as this can act as a stepping-stone towards autonomous vehicles, Kent said, the focus right now is on connecting traffic infrastructure to human drivers,
For the project, the city plans to give one or more transportation companies access to equipment for five vehicles. The connected intersections will be along Hunt Club Road between Merivale Road and Uplands Drive.
The project has $225,000 in funding — $150,000 from Transport Canada, the rest from the province.
Outfitted trucks are expected to be on the road in the fall, with Carleton University’s civil engineering school providing an assessment of the data in the New Year.
This article originally appeared in Metro News.
