Audi's Traffic Light Information system (TLI) now works in 10 separate U.S. cities. The German luxury brand announced on Wednesday that drivers of select 2017 and 2018 Audi vehicles can now use TLI in Kansas City, Kansas, and Phoenix, Arizona.
The two latest cities join Las Vegas, Nevada; Washington D.C.; Dallas and Houston, Texas; Palo Alto and Arcadia, California; Portland, Oregon; and Denver, Colorado. With Kansas City and Phoneix online, Audi said 2,250 intersections across U.S. now work with TLI.
TLI launched in Las Vegas just over one year ago and uses real-time information from the traffic signal via the car's onboard 4G LTE connection to show drivers when a traffic signal will change. A countdown timer appears in the car's gauge cluster or head-up display if equipped. It may sound like a simple feature, but during our first test of the system in 2016, we walked away believing TLI is an important step forward in the connected-car world.
While it's a precursor for any integrated technology to come, Audi also believes it takes some of the anxiety out of sitting in traffic.
In the future, TLI and the 4G LTE connection could also work in sync with a vehicle’s start/stop function, and even with navigation or other predictive services to re-route a driver. The technology could even help mitigate speed when approaching a traffic signal turning from green to red.