Project Green Light: How Quebec City is paving the way for smarter urban mobility
There is something deeply satisfying about hitting multiple green lights in a row. For those of us who navigate city streets every day, the reality is often far from that ideal, filled with frustrating stop-and-go traffic that wastes time, fuel, and energy.
Project Green Light is an initiative by Google that aims to recreate that feeling of effortless flow by leveraging the power of AI to reduce stop-and-go traffic, decrease vehicle emissions, and improve the lives of people in cities around the world.
Today, Québec City became the first city in Canada to launch Project Green Light to optimize its traffic light cycles. According to the TomTom Traffic Index 2024, Quebec City residents spend an average of 47 hours stuck in traffic each year – almost two full days lost to congestion!
Beyond individual frustrations, these traffic jams contribute to larger global challenges. Transportation accounts for 15% of global global greenhouse gas emissions and pollution at city intersections is 29 times higher than on open roads. Half of these emissions at intersections come from traffic accelerating after stopping.
Green Light works by analyzing driving trends from Google Maps and combining it with information on traffic light locations. The algorithm detects traffic congestion and provides scheduling recommendations to city engineers who can implement them in a matter of minutes.
In Quebec City, Project Green Light has already helped optimize thirteen key intersections. And on the global scale, every month, over 55 million vehicles cross intersections that have been optimized with Project Green Light. Since its launch in 2023, the initiative has demonstrated the potential to reduce stop-and-go traffic by up to 30% and estimated CO2 emissions by up to 10% at urban intersections.
These early results are very promising and we are very excited to continue working closely with the city to optimize traffic flow and reduce congestion even further. Quebec City’s commitment to Project Green Light is setting an example for other cities across Canada, demonstrating that collaboration and innovation can help build a more sustainable future.
