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It's rush hour in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood.
[ cars honking ]
Getting through Northwest Market Street and 15th Avenue
reminds you of a little bit of playing Red Light, Green Light.
[ Car horn honks ]
-I'm down here anywhere from 1 to 4 times a week.
-Seattle resident Hannah Larson
knows the stop-and-go traffic all too well.
-I think as the population has grown in the city,
we've just seen an increase of what's already been present
for so long, which is an influx of cars heading East, West.
And especially with heading West as cars are trying to turn left,
there's very few left turn signals.
And so the cars start to pile up and especially during rush hour,
it just gets to be increasingly congested as the years pass.
-The light at this Westbound left turn from Market Street
on to 15th Avenue is one
the Seattle Department of Transportation has changed.
-So that's the Westbound left turn that we were, you know,
just one of the things we were making sure to look at
and review before we implemented the recommendation from Google.
-The recommendations Laura Wojcicki with SDOT
is referring to, comes from Google.
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The company approached the City of Seattle
to partner on Project Green Light.
It uses artificial intelligence and machine learning
from Google's vast Maps database to improve signal timing
and reduce emissions.
-And certainly very exciting
that they approached us as the first North American city.
-Seattle is known for its technology innovation.
And also its traffic.
Google's Juliet Rothenberg is very familiar with both.
-And I know, I grew up in outside of Seattle, actually.
-Okay. -So, I can tell you
that Seattle has long had
traffic issues in the city.
Because of that, the transportation department
has been extremely proactive
about leveraging advanced technology.
-Some amount of stopping of traffic is unavoidable.
Rothenberg says, that's where Project Green Light comes in,
using AI to look at massive amounts of driving data
and target the intersections
which have the most opportunity for improvement.
-So we're using AI to analyze Google Maps driving trends
across thousands of intersections
in the city simultaneously.
And the AI is actually developing the model of
how each intersection works.
-Rothenberg says that includes the patterns
of traffic flowing through each intersection,
as well as how the traffic lights are configured
and how each intersection relates
to the intersections around it.
-On the days when traffic is really heavy
and you're sitting at this light,
oftentimes, it's only letting through maybe 8, 9 cars,
and that's if people are paying attention.
-This light at Market Street and 15th Avenue
is one of three intersections in the city
where SDOT engineers applied Google suggestions
and shifted the green light timing by several seconds.
-We made a 10 second adjustment.
So you could notice that,
"Hey, I'm getting through this intersection
a little more frequently,"
whereas, you know, maybe previously
you had to stop more at that intersection.
-The stop-and-go with traffic lights
is contributing to emissions 2,
which are 29 times higher at intersections
than on open roads.
Half of these emissions
come from vehicles accelerating after stopping.
-Our early numbers have shown
that we have the potential to reduce stop-and-go traffic
by up to 30%
and reduce emissions by up to 10%.
-If you multiply that by more than 1 billion cars
on the roads worldwide, that's a big impact.
-We're live right now in 13 cities across four continents,
and one of the things that has really astounded me
and our broader team is just
how well we've worked across different geographies.
-From European cities like Hamburg, Germany
to Bangalore, India; Jakarta, Indonesia,
and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
Project Green Light can impact 30 million car rides each month,
lighting the way for a more sustainable future.
-I think we lead the initiative on a lot of projects,
especially involving technology,
and I think that if this is a success here
where traffic is such a congested issue
that we will set the example for cities across the Nation
to make this change as well.
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Watch CityStream Tuesday nights at 7 on the Seattle Channel,
or find us anytime online at SeattleChannel.org.
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