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200k Flemish drivers can turn traffic lights green

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Re: 200k Flemish drivers can turn traffic lights green

#131

Post by tzs »

LtdJorge wrote: post #16
Stevvo wrote: post #6

"We want to be present on the apps that people already use" How can they not see that an app for traffic lights is clearly the wrong approach? Smart traffic lights are working great in many countries without needing an app for them to work.

Everyone wants you to install their app these days. Install my app to turn on the lights, install the app to see the menu at a restaurant, install the app to read information about an archaeological site, install an app to open the automatic doors. As you said, it's 100% the wrong approach.

> Everyone wants you to install their app these days.

Except that's not what they want here. What they want is for the apps that most people already use to add support for this.

Re: 200k Flemish drivers can turn traffic lights green

#133

Post by ToDougie »

phkahler wrote: post #71
rob74 wrote: post #69

> A simple example: at night, a main road mainly displays green, the side streets only get green for a very short time. If you arrive with the app from a side street, you can get green immediately, provided there is no traffic on the main road. In Germany, there's an established but much more low tech approach to this problem: simply turn off the traffic lights at night! All traffic lights already have yield/stop/pri…

I don't understand why they need apps for this either. The infrastructure should be in place to detect cars approaching from the side street. Once they have the ability to detect cars, it's simple to assume everyone would be requesting a green light.

> I don't understand why they need apps for this either.

Data.

Re: 200k Flemish drivers can turn traffic lights green

#134

Post by nmca »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #121
PeterStuer wrote: post #42

Just in case you wonder, these are apps of commercial data-sharing/selling businesses, not some 'official' gov app for the benefit of the citizens. They are the products of https://ndrive.com/ , https://www.flitsmeister.nl and https://be-mobile.com/ . They also focus on toll collecting and parking fees, so "pay to play" is in a sense already in their DNA. Why do these commercial entities get to influence public traff…

Very glad to hear that. If the apps are made by commercial entities then presumably I get a choice of which one to use, which means in the absence of any artificial barriers I can choose one that respects my privacy (possibly something open-source). If it were a single, government-made app then there would be no such choice.

You can dream of better yet! If the spec was required to be open source for the government project, then you could have commercial choices and some less feature rich open source version.

Re: 200k Flemish drivers can turn traffic lights green

#135

Post by dotancohen »

elric wrote: post #96
phkahler wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why they need apps for this either. The infrastructure should be in place to detect cars approaching from the side street. Once they have the ability to detect cars, it's simple to assume everyone would be requesting a green light.

Flemish person here: no one here understands it either. Probably CV-driven development for someone...

Or the meeting started with the open question: "How can we get our citizens to give us 24-hour location data on their whereabouts? How could we possibly spin it as something beneficial to them?"

Re: 200k Flemish drivers can turn traffic lights green

#136

Post by hungmung »

rob74 wrote: post #69

> A simple example: at night, a main road mainly displays green, the side streets only get green for a very short time. If you arrive with the app from a side street, you can get green immediately, provided there is no traffic on the main road. In Germany, there's an established but much more low tech approach to this problem: simply turn off the traffic lights at night! All traffic lights already have yield/stop/pri…

In America we have an even lower tech solution: if there's no traffic and nobody to see, you pretend the light is green.

Re: 200k Flemish drivers can turn traffic lights green

#137

Post by ergsef »

phkahler wrote: post #71
rob74 wrote: post #69

> A simple example: at night, a main road mainly displays green, the side streets only get green for a very short time. If you arrive with the app from a side street, you can get green immediately, provided there is no traffic on the main road. In Germany, there's an established but much more low tech approach to this problem: simply turn off the traffic lights at night! All traffic lights already have yield/stop/pri…

I don't understand why they need apps for this either. The infrastructure should be in place to detect cars approaching from the side street. Once they have the ability to detect cars, it's simple to assume everyone would be requesting a green light.

You would be amazed how bad drivers are at actually hitting the correct stopping position for the inductive loops in the ground that sense cars. When I'm on my bike stopped on a small side street I often try and gesture for drivers to pull up so their car is over the vehicle sensor in the pavement and the light changes faster. Drivers have gotten angry and yelled at me for giving them a little "inch up" hand gesture.

Re: 200k Flemish drivers can turn traffic lights green

#138

Post by ergsef »

toast0 wrote: post #118
bluecalm wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have those in Poland. Sucks if you are on a bike. You need to wait for a car to turn it green for you.

If they're using inductive vehicle detector loops in the pavement, those can be tuned to detect motorcycles and bicycles (probably not carbon fiber bikes though). Where I've seen and used loops tuned for bicycles, they have a different cut pattern and a painted bike to accent positions where the detector is likely to detect you... Sadly, they don't tend to have far back detectors (advance loops) tuned for bikes so an…

My city has inductive bike sensors at specific intersections but many intersections (even ones with bike lanes) lack them. Cycling infrastructure is so half-assed in the US.

Re: 200k Flemish drivers can turn traffic lights green

#140

Post by shkkmo »

gruez wrote: post #117
shkkmo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems like the far more plausible reason is that drivers don't want to be held up by a cyclist traveling at 10mph in front of them? You sound like one of thos drivers who believe it's OK to put other people at risk to save themselves a couple of seconds. I see this all the time in my large truck that I'm very good at coasting into red lights. Even when there are already vehicles stopped at the light, people will no…

>You sound like one of thos drivers who believe it's OK to put other people at risk to save themselves a couple of seconds. See my other comment. My point isn't that it's suddenly okay to overtake because the driver can shave off 5s, just that the cartoonishly evil caricature of the driver's reasoning that OP dreamed up isn't accurate. Unfortunately, judging by the downvotes it seems like people are interpreting my o…

> just that the cartoonishly evil caricature of the driver's reasoning that OP dreamed up isn't accurate

"Cartoonishly evil"?!?

I'm pretty sure it is accurate for some subset of the driving population, which was the claim.

> Unfortunately, judging by the downvotes it seems like people are interpreting my opposition to OP's claim that "Some people apparently just can't stand to have anyone driving before them" as me arguing that it's fine for drivers to mow down cyclists to save 5s.

You didn't actually provide any evidence or argument to dispute that claim and completely ignored the key "risky" part of comment.

The way it reads is that you had your feelings hurt by having your bad behavior called out and felt a need to rationalize that behavior.

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