Travolution is a project backed by Audi that will hopefully ease traffic congestion. The principal behind Travolution is that city traffic is always slower then highway traffic due to the number of times that drivers need to stop/start their vehicles as they approach a traffic light. This results in extended travel times, reduces fuel efficiency and ultimately causes driver frustration and road rage.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could time the lights kind of like when you first got your license, but safely?

That’s where Travolution comes in. Within the center of the German city of Ingolstadt, Audi has installed a network of 46 intelligent traffic lights. These traffic lights have communication modules built within them that send messages to specially equipped vehicles in the vicinity as to the time remaining before the light turns red. The vehicle then calculates the optimum speed at which the driver must travel in order to make the light without stopping.

This is a great pilot project and here’s hoping all goes well. Let’s just hope that they have some good backup equipment installed in the lights and vehicles in the event that one of the devices on either end fails as technology often can.

[Travolution via Auto Blog]