Every city has its urban runners. Each runner has a different purpose, but they all have one enemy in common; traffic lights. London has 6,252 signals, NYC 12,460 and Tokyo has a staggering 15,772. Signals are absolutely necessary in traffic control and saving lives. However, they make completing an uninterrupted urban run near impossible, throwing runners off pace, and hindering record time performance. Dedicated to supporting all runners, adidas Japan took a stand to resolve this issue and to make city running dreams come true.

GREEN LIGHT RUN is an urban marathon race, where the runner doesn’t have to stop for any red light. In cooperation with the police, traffic signal algorithms were analyzed. This marathon held in Tokyo was the world first to utilize Big Data and technology in this way. The optimum routings and timings to ensure that runners would not have to stop for a single red light anywhere for their entire 42.195km challenge were delivered to them in real-time navigation prompts.

A “world first” marathon utilizing traffic signal cycle data analysis was held. The runners took their mark at midnight in Marunouchi, for a full-length marathon race leading them to the goal at adidas Harajuku Brand Core Store. They followed real-time navigation based on traffic signal cycles and ever-changing traffic conditions, and they were able to run the entire 42.195km from start to finish without stopping once for a red light. Response was immense, and its buzz instantly went global.