MIT researchers plan "death of the traffic light" with smart intersections

A collaborative research group has developed a conceptual traffic system that would enable driverless vehicles to whizz through intersections without colliding, eliminating the need for signals ( movie). Researchers from MIT, the Swiss Institute of Technology and the Italian National Research Council came up with the idea for the slot-based interaction called Light Traffic. Their system would use sensors to keep driverless cars at a safe distance from each other and allocate slots as they arrive at a crossroads. Speeds would be automatically adjusted on approach to ensure the vehicles take it in turns to pass across without having to stop. "Traffic intersections are particularly complex spaces, because you have two flows of traffic competing for the same piece of real estate," said Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Lab.