Re Pittsburgh's new artificially intelligent stoplights could mean no more pointless idling

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>
> Date: October 23, 2016 at 6:19:41 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: "ip" <ip () listbox com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Pittsburgh's new artificially intelligent stoplights could mean no more pointless idling
>
> > Steel City now boasts 50 intersections whose stoplights are running
> > artificial intelligence software known as Surtrac that reduces wait
> > times on empty or lightly-traveled roads.
> >
> > Since Surtrac was first introduced in 2012, the Rapid Flow team
> > estimates the AI stoplights have cut emissions by 21%, travel times
> > by 25%, and idling times by 40%.
>
> Clearly there is a disconnect here for numerate readers.  You can't
> improve any emissions, travel times or idling times on empty roads.
> There aren't any emissions, travel times, or idling times there.
>
> And on lightly traveled roads, even a massive improvement there only
> improves overall travel by e.g. 1%, since most of the traffic is not
> on lightly traveled roads.  So they are either mis-describing the
> method, or presenting bogus statistics.
>
> It's been pretty standard for decades in many cities to use
> sensor-driven stoplights that keep the main road flowing unless and
> until a few cars stack up waiting to cross the main road.  That can be
> done with artificial stupidity, with no need to deploy the expensive
> artificial intelligence buzzword.
>
> > the other stoplights use a proprietary set of algorithms to adjust
> > their timing accordingly.
>
> Proprietary is not the same as better; usually the reverse.
>
> > The magic of Surtrac is that it bundles each stoplight into an
> > intelligent network "that moves all the vehicles it knows about
> > through the intersection in the most efficient way possible," Rapid
> > Flow CEO Steve Smith said ...  
>
> Yeah, it's "magic" and there is NO more efficient way to do it other
> than to buy their proprietary software.  They have found the one
> absolutely most efficient way -- there are no improvements that can be
> made to their system.  Let me guess, their CEO came up through the
> sales department, not through engineering.
>
>    John



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