<<It's more useful than the way they now get information – by looking out a cockpit window or relying on controllers.>>
That saddens me. I worked for 21 years in Heathrow Tower and never experienced a runway incursion. The only "near" ones I had were one or two caused by pilots but, luckily, I was able to stop them in time. If runway incursions caused by ATC are increasing then something is drastically wrong with controller training.
I've mentioned this elsewhere.... but I don't know how the tower controllers work at ORD but is their system foolproof? One US facility I saw on TV appeared to have no regimented system of representing the runways movements to the controllers - the controller working the runway just held a strip for each aircraft in his hand. At Heathrow, and other UK airports, each runway is represented by a flight-progress strip bay in front of the controllers. Each aircraft is represented by a FPS which can be moved in that bay; as an aircraft is cleared to land or take off the strip is emphatically moved to the bottom of the bay. If the runway is blocked in any way either a red blocker strip is placed in the bottom slot in the bay or, if the obstruction is caused by another aircraft the strip for that aircraft is placed in the bay such that other movements cannot take place while it is there. I've used that system successfully in a variety of "crossing runway" configurations and single-runway operations. Its isn't rocket science but it damned well works.
The light system appears to be similar to the reds and greens which have been in use for many years at Heathrow, albeit only during fog and at night. Under those conditions, if an aircraft is crossing a runway red stop bars are illuminated across the runway as protection. It's not precisely like the system mentioned above, but it wouldn't take much to change it. But how much better it would be for the ATC systems to work every time so that pilot confidence could be restored and workload reduced...