Audi has offered a system called Traffic Light Information (TLI) on some of its models since 2015 (in cities where vehicle-to-vehicle V2I infrastructure was implemented), and now it is adding a new supporting system to it called Green Light Optimized Speed Advisory (GLOSA). It is available on post-2017 model year A4 and Q7 models and, on paper, it sounds really useful as it recommends what speed you should travel at in order to catch “the green wave.”
In case its name isn’t self-explanatory enough, the green wave implies you catch green light after green light, something that is not easy to achieve if you don’t know the exact speed you’re supposed to travel at. Now, with GLOSA, Audi says you can significantly reduce the number of red light stops and time spent stationary.
According to the manufacturer, GLOSA works when an Audi equipped with this system “approaches a connected traffic light, it receives real-time signal information from the traffic management system that monitors traffic lights via the on-board 4G LTE data connection.
Audi says that around 4,700 intersections are currently “connected” and support the technology. It has been implemented in the following urban sprawls:
- Dallas
- Denver
- Gainesville, Fla
- Houston
-Kansas City, Kansas
- Las Vegas
- Los Angeles
- New York City
- Orlando, Fla
- Phoenix
- Portland, Ore
- San Francisco
- Washington, D.C.
- Northern Virginia.
In the future, the Automaker plans to integrate additional functions into the system, like start/stop, the navigation system which could change the route based on traffic light information, and additional predictive services that could further improve the experience.
Further reading
Read our full review on the 2018 Audi A4.
Read our full review on the 2018 Audi Q7.