Washington DC: In the future, you might not have to worry about wasting fuel while waiting at traffic lights. A new technology will equip traffic lights to control your vehicle's engine and improve its fuel efficiency. IBM has already filed a patent on the system that will help minimize fuel consumption. The system would be able to receive position information from vehicles waiting at red lights to determine a queue of other vehicles stopped at the signal. The potential time, before the lights turn green, is then calculated. If the time is over a set threshold, the traffic light can send signals to the vehicle engines to stop them. When the lights turn green, a "start-engine notification" would be sent to the front vehicle to start its engine first, and a signal would be sent to the second vehicle in the queue an "optimal time" later, and so on. IBM has proposed that the technology need not be made mandatory, reports Discovery News. Instead, drivers can choose to avail of the facility to receive stop/start engine notifications suggesting that they turn off their cars.