200k Flemish drivers can turn traffic lights green

This isn't a system to detect if there are cars at an intersection. Wire loops and other systems already can and do measure cars like that.

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.

That's not how it works - the idea is your navigation app signals the lights in advance. If you will reach red lights in 1km, the app signals this and the lights will be green before you're there, so you don't need to slow down.

Cyclist aren't massive nor hot, on a hot summerday they will be cooler than the road surface. I think a camera with object recognition or something similar should be able to do it.

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 actually assumed that this is because the system tries to figure out where you will be by your planned route. so seeing the bike coming up is much later - for example when the bike will be coming around a corner

> 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."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What are the privacy concerns relating to ambulances?

In the US, there’s a thing called the Opticom. It’s just an extra light that is installed along with the normal light bar, and the traffic light recognizes the strobe pattern, and changes. https://www.fedsig.com/product/opticom/

No app required.

Thanks for sharing that link. The categories suggest that this system is mainly used to give priority to certain kinds of vehicles. Public transport and emergency vehicles already had a system to turn lights green, so this seems like an addition to extend the system to "milder" priority vehicles like construction without giving them access to the previous system.

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.

Belgium has intelligent traffic lights already. You can't use an app system like this without existing smart traffic light infrastructure.

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.

I think many in the comments are misunderstanding how this works, perhaps because it's not clearly explained, but my understanding is that they want to integrate with your navigation software so that they can predict (based on the routes of drivers navigating with a supported app) when certain vehicles will reach certain lights and adjust the timing so as not to cause traffic to have to slow down.

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.

Everyone wants you to install their app these days. Install my app to turn on the lights, install the app to see the menu at a restaurant, install the app to read information about an archaeological site, install an app to open the automatic doors.

As you said, it's 100% the wrong approach.

I guess they just want to collect movements of all their citizens, and this is their way to get at the data.

Note that here they are working via phone apps, so if you are navigating with a local navigation app like Karta GPS, Flitsmeister or Sway, these apps can let the lights know you are heading that way and will be there in X minutes. Therefore this approach is not _really_ car centered and also works for bikes or any alternative form of transportation. If I read between the lines of the article, the system was developed for emergency services first, but is now expanded.

Are you sure they're using weight sensors? AFAIK wire loops seem much more useful, plus they have the advantage of also picking up bikes and other lightweight traffic more accurately.

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.

It hardly seems like the Flemish government are going to create an app that's a serious competitor to Google Maps etc. Even just reaching something reasonably functional for driving directions would be an awful lot of work.

If Google Maps had broadcast your individual(!) position and navigation intent to the local government people would scream about privacy. I'm not sure it's better when a local app does it.