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Problem: I regularly cross a road that can be busy but also sometimes has long gaps in the traffic. So I hit the button to cross, but then a gap comes along. So I cross in the gap, and would like to be able to cancel my original request to cross so as not to annoy drivers with a stop at an empty crossing.
Now a simple solution would be a cancel button on the other side – and you can just see the annoying youths on the other side of the road hitting the “Cancel” button every time you press the “I’d like to cross” button.
Solution: Now we could go down the route where the lights have enough brains to cycle when there is a gap in the traffic – but that seems beyond modern technology, and anyway what I consider a gap might not be the same for a sprightly 90 year old.
We could use face recognition to track the crosser and identify when the crossing was needed or not, but its overly complicated.
So my solution is to change the standard buttons for a fingerprint scanners. This way the lights know the person cancelling is the same person who requested on the other side of the road. Obviously the lights don’t cancel the request if others have also signalled a desire to cross (unless they too ‘cancel’), and they don’t cut short a pedestrian crossing stop light sequence just because the original requestor has “cancelled” (others might also be crossing).
For those who are really paranoid, you can have the original press to cross “button” as well, so the paranoid have an alternative that will avoid any chance of Big Brother knowing there crossing use.
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The thing that really needs fixing is the 'gap in road traffic + crossing active + nobody there to use it' situation. |
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If there were system awareness of the entire road dynamics, it could possibly optimise the timing of the active crossing duration to coincide with when a gap is going to be coming along anyway - the system would need to know that there's a gap down there along the road, and know that it'll be here at a certain time, at which it can action the crossing there. |
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(That's assuming there's no possible way of a crossing to detect that a person who was once there and pressed a button prematurely shot across the road and nobody is present now, so why not cancel it?) |
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Crossings are astoundingly stupidly designed at the best of time - they have poor usability, from a HUI point of view. |
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//If there were system awareness of the entire road dynamics, it could possibly optimise the timing of the active crossing duration to coincide with when a gap is going to be coming along anyway//
That's exactly how they do work. Normally there is a sensor down the road that detects oncoming traffic. When you press the button to cross, the lights don't change immediately but wait until either the oncoming traffic has cleared the crossing or until a specified length of time has passed.
The crossing just outside my house has an amusingly set timing. There is a set of traffic lights further down the road and my crossing almost invariably seems to catch the last vehicle that made it through the traffic lights. I suspect that the last vehicle probably went through the traffic lights as they changed to amber so their impatience only leads to an additional, frustrating stop for them. |
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/Or build a bridge?/
Sure - nothing stopping you do that on existing crossings as well, but I bet they dont because of cost. |
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Ratty, thank you for boldly taking up an issue near
and dear to my heart. I travel by foot most of the
time. |
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I give you a bun, and the people in the cars waiting
for
a stupid red light, 5 minutes after I have trotted past,
give you a bun as well. |
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Here's why it wouldn't work, at least in my town. The lights are
all linked to each other. The walk light is linked to the green
traffic light. When the traffic light turns green, and it's on a
timer, then the walk light displays. If you push the walk button
sooner than that, you have to wait for the light to change to
green. Before that happens, the traffic going the other way has
to be safely stopped. So what you're waiting for is the other
traffic signal to turn yellow, wait a few seconds, then turn red,
wait a second, then your light to turn green. On the few
intersections that have such buttons, they rarely actually do
anything, anyway, because the city engineers knew better than
to enable a single pedestrian to halt a huge flow of traffic. Your
idea would never be accepted because it would mean
encouraging pedestrians to cross against the light. In the USA,
jaywalking is a ticketable offense, and rightly so. Every day, it
seems, there's a story in the news about a poor pedestrian
getting struck by a vehicle because they thought it was safe to
cross against the light, or that the presence of the light means
they don't have to look both ways before crossing. |
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So, in short, I get your point, but it's not necessary and will result
in impulsive kids getting hurt. Slow down, wait for the crossing
light, and look both ways before you cross the street. Didn't your
parents teach you that when you were a kid? Is it really that hard
to do? [-] |
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