IT used to be just boy scouts and girl guides who helped old people across the road, but now traffic lights are about to play their part. Smart signals that don鈥檛 change colour when pedestrians are halfway across the road are going on trial at the end of this year. They may eventually save thousands of lives.
Crossing the road at traffic lights can be a nightmare. The illuminated green figure telling pedestrians it is safe to cross often stays lit for just a few seconds-the time it takes a healthy youngster to nip across. Elderly people can find the light has turned red before they are safely across. Up to 300 pedestrians a week are killed on Europe鈥檚 roads.
The smart traffic light has a video camera with an image-processing chip inside says Bart Bouck茅 of Traficon, the Belgian company coordinating the project. The team, which includes researchers at Belgium鈥檚 national research centre, is working on software algorithms to analyse the microchip鈥檚 output. A finished unit will sit on top of a traffic signal.
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The smart traffic light works by creating a 鈥渄etection zone鈥� within the visual field of the camera. When people are in this zone, the software overrides the traffic signal鈥檚 normal cycle. It keeps the illuminated figure green and traffic lights red until the pedestrian has crossed the road.
鈥淚t sounds like a jolly good idea,鈥� says Ben Plowden, director of the Pedestrians鈥� Association. 鈥淎nything ensuring people don鈥檛 have to scramble across the road-particularly the elderly and people with small children-will be a real help.鈥�
Bouck茅 says that the system could also help vehicles turning across the flow of oncoming traffic into a side road-a right turn in Britain, a left turn in Europe. Vehicles making this turn often get stranded in the middle of the junction. By creating a detection zone in the middle of the junction, the system will 鈥渢ell鈥� the traffic lights to create a short delay between phases to let the stranded vehicles leave.
The traffic lights are being developed as part of the European Commission鈥檚 Watchbird project. Trials will begin in the Belgian city of Antwerp by the end of this year and at various locations in Britain and Germany next year.
