Nick Musachio, local inventor in Minnesota, has just been issued a patent (No. 8,711,005) for his Always Green Traffic Control System. (Since this is transportation, we will abbreviate this AGTCS)

Imagine you have an isolated signalized intersection, operating near but below capacity. If vehicles were able to travel at the correct speed when approaching the intersection for a significant distance, they should be able to  travel through the intersection without hitting a red light or being delayed by standing queues. If at 45 MPH they would hit a red light, but at 35 MPH would get a green, they should be informed to reduce speed to 35 MPH. This not only reduces driver delay, but should decrease crashes and decrease emissions, both of which are exacerbated by intersection control and braking and acceleration.

How would drivers know which speed to travel? An upstream Variable Message Sign with Dynamic Speed Limits (tied into the traffic signal controller cabinet, or with the pre-programmed traffic signal timings) would tell them the best speed to avoid stopping. If only the first car in a platoon does this (on a 1 lane road), all following cars are controlled by default.

Audi has a similar in-vehicle system. That is only useful if the traffic agencies produce live feeds of traffic signal timings. Comment: it is appalling that such a traffic signal timing live feed doesn’t generally exist (even transit agencies, not historically known for their cutting edge research) have GTFS.

AGTCS is infrastructure based, and works for all vehicles anywhere an agency wants to set it up.

Some videos and simulations below.