This just allows for better traffic flow management by predicting influxes of traffic along long roads.
But, more importantly, it allows traffic planners to analyze popular sources/destinations on the road map. If 90% of cars turn left at a certain traffic light but only because the traffic light before it takes forever to turn green, they can tweak the scheduling to divide traffic more evenly.
The obvious downside, of course, is that this data will quickly show individuals when analyzing patterns in remote areas.
As you said, it's 100% the wrong approach.
The only way to do this effectively is with a planned route, and hence why they need to use an app (the one you're using to navigate/route plan with) and why having the main navigation apps people tend to use (e.g. Waze, GMaps) is desirable.
No app required.
That being said, this is kind of a non-issue already, I have heard a story about someone abusing the preempt sensors like 10 years ago and never since then. Maybe there already exists an encoding scheme.
…which in practice tend to be more expensive to implement and maintain. Systems like this one can work because they take advantage of highly available commodity infrastructure.
I live in Berlin, which doesn't have such sensors and it's always frustrating waiting for lights to change when there's no traffic.
I can also tell you that even in a country with sensors all over the place, I do sometimes end up waiting on an intersection with no traffic. I assume it's some kind of public transportation/emergency vehicle priority system activating, or maybe it's an attempt to calm traffic downstream where loads of traffic has piled up already so intersections don't get blocked.
Either way, adding sensors doesn't necessarily make traffic lights immune to unnecessary waiting times.
I don't think something like ETSI ITS can be implemented in apps like this, although ITS does seem to have a TCP/UDP transport so maybe I'm wrong.
Packaging this in app form seems like an excellent way to permit someone to emulate a couple dozen installs, all traveling along the same path, tricking congestion systems into giving them priority over other traffic participants.
The location of the lights doesn't exactly point to usage by cyclists.
As far as I know, almost all traffic lights in the Netherlands work with magnetic sensors under the road for presence detection. Then there are a few optical cameras for congestion detection at specific intersections.
The magnetic sensors don't pick up ultralight or carbon road bikes, but bikes usually have an additional push button anyway.
It depends on the city, but unless you're on the highway or about to enter one, a traffic light here can be assumed to serve bikes.
I found that link a few years ago thanks to an app I used when I went to university: https://www.enschedefietsstad.nl/enschede-fietst-app/snel-gr... The municipality has an app that will integrate with the iVRI system to have traffic lights turn green faster for bikes. It doesn't do anything for cars, it's built purely to try to convince more people not to travel by car.
Of course, iVRI data providing information about incoming bicycles don't automatically reprogram traffic lights to give them priority. However, the information is available. I've had the Enschede app trigger a "this app requested X green lights during your ride" popup in other cities; I'm pretty sure it's just an iVRI integration, not one restricted by a specific municipality.
Having drivers reach for their phone when they're approaching traffic lights - common pedestrian crossing points - is categorically moronic.
The article says that the they just ned a relevant app running on their phone when they're approaching an relevant traffic light, and there's no mention that users need to actively do anything.
Also please have a read through the HN guidelines regarding your punchline "is categorically moronic."
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
This is a system to detect "in 32 minutes, twenty-five cars will come from the south, crossing sixteen cars from the east. By pausing the western traffic lights for three seconds, both streams of cars can drive past each other without clogging up the main intersection".
Users don't need to press buttons on apps, they're just using their existing navigation apps which are already providing them with directions (or in the case of Flitsmeister, speed cameras). Similar apps also exist for pedestrians and bikes in my country. My biking experience certainly has improved by having lights on empty/near empty intersections automatically turn green when I'm approaching.
I'd rather see more roundabouts rather than the badly scheduled traffic light system my city has, but the system works for me.
There's the ever-present privacy threat of sharing your (aggregate) location, of course, but in this case we're talking about the government, which pretty much has a live map of what phones are moving where already.
Seems like possibly it's a small enough region that you could cram it into a MILP solver?
I agree that the app-based system would theoretically be slightly better in that it has more information to work with, but given that we're basically talking about a stochastic process then it feels like the IR system should really be good enough.
It's not the first time apps are being shoved where they shouldn't belong by the Flemish Government. They made a cooking app of half a million Euro [1] and there were trials where you could use an app to to get the deposit back on plastic bottles by scanning the bottle and your wastebag [2].
I'm not sure if it's incompetence, trying to look modern or just plain old corruption.
[1] https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2025/05/27/kookapp-van-vlaamse-...
[2] https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2023/05/23/cordacampus-proefpro...
I don't know the technical details on how it's done here in Stockholm, even less in the suburbs where I've lived but it feels like magic that in some traffic lights in busier intersections they'll just trigger by themselves with enough distance that when I arrive with the bike at the intersection the lights are turning green for me.
I have looked for cameras but couldn't find them, it's even more puzzling in a specific intersection close to my house where I bike along a 4-lane road with only fields of wheat and grass, and the intersection I cross leads to an industrial area, there are only the posts for the pedestrian/bike lights and those still turn green, no cameras in sight, no detection trap on the pavement.
They are the products of https://ndrive.com/ , https://www.flitsmeister.nl and https://be-mobile.com/ .
They also focus on toll collecting and parking fees, so "pay to play" is in a sense already in their DNA. Why do these commercial entities get to influence public traffic lights? And due to the inherent red-queen arms race in this, not installing any of these apps will explicitly disadvantage you as the 'smart' traffic lights (already 1 in 8 and growing rapidly) do favor the app users.
When I lived in Brussels all traffic lights of intersections would go green at the same time and red at the same time. So lights for pedestrians AND cars in ALL directions. People just can't drive at all, they can only honk their horn. Potholes in the highway are filled with pebbles and sand, etc
My theory is that it has to do with how they learn to drive: It used to be super easy to get a drivers license in Belgium back in the day. Basically you'd just go to the town hall and buy one. They now have a system where you get a special permit to driver with an 'experienced' supervisor. Usually one of your parents for a certain number of months before going to an exam to get your license.
Let's say that a professional driving instructor can get across 80-90% of their knowledge of driving cars to someone. Now imagine how poorly an amateur would do, 50%? 30%? So you learn 30% of someone who learned 30% of someone...
In general though, it just shows how unimportant the average Belgian finds cars or properly learning about driving them and traffic, etc. So maybe the learning how to drive is just a symptom of an overal lack of caring with regards to driving properly. As this strange pay-to-win driving schema also shows.
https://www.wired.com/story/99-phones-fake-google-maps-traff...
PaulHoule•3d ago
There used to be a traffic light in Ithaca where if you were heading out of town via the South hill you could bypass South Aurora St and instead go up a residential street up a steep hill with very little traffic, hang a left and trigger the light and almost always get the light to turn red in front of the person who was in front of you on the main road.
They retimed it so this didn't work anymore.
317070•5h ago
gregoriol•5h ago
antonvs•5h ago
These days, many dishwashers, refrigerators, coffee machines etc. routinely connect to the internet. The tech is well established, and projects like this become possible precisely because they’re not that complicated to build or maintain. They take advantage of common infrastructure, and can often be cheaper than supposedly “simpler” alternatives.
LtdJorge•4h ago
And as a side effect, we get very funny cyber-security news weekly!
gregoriol•4h ago
antonvs•4h ago
The connectivity at the traffic lights can be a small box, easily replaced, much more cheaply than e.g. traffic sensors under the road.
If the system fails for some reason, such as an internet outage, traffic lights can fall back to ordinary timing.
You’re not raising serious objections.
jeroenhd•4h ago
The smart traffic light management systems are already in place in many intersections already, this is just hooking another source of traffic information into the system without having to dig open concrete or asphalt.