Rhythm Engineering
The first company I’m going to highlight on Company Time is Rhythm Engineering, a company with the potential to make significant changes to our carbon footprint without the need for us to make any changes to our lifestyles.
Rhythm Engineering specializes in adaptive traffic signal control systems (ATCS), although the company also deals with digital traffic management and other engineering issues. Founded by Reggie Chandra, who serves as the company’s President and CEO, Rhythm Engineering grew out of Mr. Chandra’s frustration with the tools available to traffic and transportation engineers at the time. He felt that the existing ATCS solutions were decades out of date, timed traffic lights poorly, and resulted in significant wasted time and fuel.
As a result, Mr. Chandra started Rhythm Engineering in 2005 and began work on a simple yet innovative new system. The ATCS designed by Rhythm Engineering has been technologically feasible since the 1990s, but never implemented. It relies on a simple, limited capability camera whose sole purpose is to count vehicles passing through an intersection. Data on the number and speed of vehicles at all times of the day gradually teaches the system how to time the lights more accurately. It offers dynamic green lights, reduces congestion, and improves safety, with virtually no need for interaction on the part of traffic engineers.
The Rhythm Engineering ATCS can reduce stops by between 60 and 90 percent. This consequently also reduces fuel consumption and emissions, because starting and stopping are the least efficient activities for a vehicle. And of course, nobody likes waiting at red lights more than necessary.
Since its introduction, Rhythm Engineering’s ATCS has become the top selling such system in the United States. Learn more at www.rhythmtraffic.com.