Smart Lake County Roads Bring Traffic Light Information to the Dashboard

More specifically, drivers in select Audi models manufactured in 2017 and in all cars launched since 2019 will now be provided with a timer to see when the red light turns to green right on their dashboard.

It’s all powered by the Audi PRIME Traffic Light Information feature, a system that’s available on the said models in several other locations across the U.S. and which could soon get a sibling on cars from other brands, including Volkswagen.

Lake County officials said they installed the necessary hardware to transmit the required information to Audi cars in more than 100 intersections, and the program should kick off this fall.

Drivers will thus be provided with traffic light information on the dashboard or the heads-up display, and Lake County representatives say they are already exploring other improvements, including even more advanced systems that would allow the Audi system to indicate the car speed required to arrive at an intersection on a green light.

“The Lake County Division of Transportation has been working with Traffic Technology Services (TTS), Inc. to launch a new program featuring cloud-based technology that allows vehicles to receive information from Lake County's traffic signal network. Through this program, Lake County receives anonymous information from TTS and Audi about motorist's experiences, such as how long a vehicle waits at a red light, that it can use to improve traffic signal operations,” the Lake County officials announced this week.

Needless to say, the long-term goal here is to make similar capabilities available on as many cars as possible, but this also depends on the manufacturers themselves. Only the latest-generation Audis and a few older models come with the system, but the more carmakers install similar tech on their vehicles, the faster the adoption of the smart roads can increase not only in the U.S. but across the entire world.