Hi Erik,

You think too much. ;-)

And as usual, that's really just a subtle way of saying without admitting that you make me think too much. ;-)

Now consider a less trivial aspect of that project.

Interconnect all of the traffic lights within a city to synchronize their cycles such that any car, starting from any red light at the commencement of a green period, and traveling at or no more than five miles per hour under the posted speed limit, will catch the lights green as long as he stays on a given street.

Next, consider the same problem, but this time making the cycles dynamic to synchronize to actual traffic flow (perhaps within some reasonable tolerance of speed limit violation) regardless of posted speed limits.

Finally, consider whether it would be worthwhile to synchronize traffic lights across city boundaries in cases where the cities are contiguous, and in cases where they are separated by unincorporated areas. How far apart would they need to be before the synchronization would be pointless?

Joe