The Tao of traffic lights
When a traffic light goes green can seem to hinge on whimsy rather than the number of vehicles waiting. Scientists propose speeding up traffic by making signals go with the flow (SN: 10/23/10, p. 8). Inspired by the movement of crowds through narrow spaces such as doorways, Swiss and German researchers tried a responsive, flexible approach, rather than a top-down, centralized system.
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