A Simple Method To Dramatically Decrease Traffic Congestion & Why Cities Aren’t Using It
October 10th, 2007 Posted in Traffic Congestion
If there was an easy way to cut the amount of time that you spend sitting in traffic, wouldn’t you expect the government to find a way to use it? Synchronizing traffic signals so that people can get to where they’re going with a minimum of stopping is something that everyone thinks that cities are already doing. Unfortunately, this is not the case at all.
In the recently released 2007 National Traffic Signal Report Card, transportation agencies received a grade of D for traffic signals. This is an improvement from last year’s D-minus, but it’s still unacceptable given the clear benefits of traffic signal synchronization:
Decreased Congestion
Traffic flows more smoothly when vehicles aren’t forced to stop at every intersection.
Improved Gas Mileage
Acceleration uses up gas quickly. Less stopping and starting means that vehicles will get better gas mileage.
Fewer Road Rage Incidents
Being stuck in traffic makes everyone frustrated. If traffic flows smoothly the frustration level will drop dramatically.
So, with all these benefits, why aren’t cities properly synchronizing their traffic signals?
Sadly, the answer comes down to money. Traffic tickets, red-light cameras, speed, cameras, vehicle seizures, and other punitive measures all bring in revenue to the city. In contrast, traffic signal synchronization costs the city money in engineering fees. With cities developing new ways to make money from traffic violations everyday (automatic license plate recognition, etc.), it’s clear where their focus lies. It’s time for cities to do the right thing and make traffic signal synchronization a priority.
Tell us what you think. Add a comment to this post.
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Doing the right thing is not going to happen when money is involved. US Drivers have had their Constitutional rights and privacy manipulated for years and since there was never any real opposition to this, technology is allowing States and their Local Governments to tighten the screws even further. At best, driving in the United States will remain the same, at worst – well, who knows? It gets worse by the week.
With modern computing power, all traffic sensors and lights in a city could be wired together and a “learning computer” could use its fuzzy logic to determine the typical traffic flow patterns. After a very short time, the traffic would most certainly flow much better and make every driver happier… Unfortunately, as has already been pointed out; there’s too much revenues involved to upset the status-quo.
Well, I can’t add much to that. Both of you are right. The first poster knows human nature and if the history of traffic control is any indication of the future we’re in trouble.
Well all I can say is,, sure seems our elected officials are representing us,, not!
But they don’t worry because you all will vote the status quo, Democrat or Republican.
If you want change, you need to change the way you vote. You can put someone new in to office but if they are part of the status quo, nothing will change!!!!
Funny–I always thought driving an automobile was a privilege, not a right; that’s why we are licensed.
Toronto–and many other lage North American cities as well, no doubt, have traffic signals controlled by a computer with information fed in by pavement sensors. That’s because a large metropolitan municipality can (a) afford the cost, and (b) finds it advantageous.
If you wish to persuade cities to install computer-controlled traffic signals, don’t talk drivers’ “rights” but municipal advantage.
What I think.
Coordination is a fact.
We as drivers are as capable as synchronizing lights. Outside the cities we need it. The CFTS Constant Flow Traffic System came out of my brain in 1986. 800,000 people have died on the roads since then and I blame myself as well as thee assemblyman that once told me we were’nt smart enough to maintain distance with speed. Him and every DOT from NJ to Washington state and DC Federal and National. It’s different now. Help me.
What I thinkDistance with speed
I sure am glad I helped pay for all the lights which help the county make money in tickets from motorists like me and you as well as make the oil companies richer at the expense of me and you and make us all pissed off due to constant unnecessary stops and starts.
One other easy way to allow traffic flow- The five light left-turn Green Arrow(red, yellow, green, yellow arrow, green arrow). If they can have it at SOME intersections, they should be at all. Does anyone else feel really stupid waiting for a red arrow to cycle to green at 3 o’clock in the morning?
I agree with John. Driving is not a constitutional right. If people could all understand this, and learn to be more courteous on the road, then maybe living in New Jersey wouldn’t suck so much.
Anyone who believes it is easy or cheap to rewire and set up traffic light controls has not tried to do it or to price it.
Cities can find it very profitable to set such traffic light systems up. The more easily drivers can get around in a city, the faster money is spent and by more people. If no one can get to a place, then no money can either. The problem comes from the fact that the easier means to get around will lead to more people than the system can handle until it is back to the old levels of happiness for the drivers. The city still makes more, but there are more unhappy drivers.
Most of my unnecessary stops are caused by traffic accidents – often related to those who are driving much faster than the surrounding traffic.
Dude, traffic light timings are programmed, not “wired.”
OMG, someone else finally realizes this BS is going on all the time!!!
This is probably my biggest pet peeve living in Virginia.
I have noticed the traffic lights in Northern VA and in Tidewater are timed so that when making a left turn onto a primary artery from a feeder road (at a traffic light), you will hit nearly every traffic light (red) on the road you just entered. It’s so annoying and ridiculous.
The only way around it is to quickly accelerate to some assinine speed. Is Virgina attempting to encourage speeding? Probably, as the cops only sit along the few stretches of road in Northern VA where you can actually come close to approaching the speed limit.
Point is… I know that VDOT is very much aware of what they are doing. I’ve sat for minutes on end at these same side roads / feeder roads, waiting to make a turn. No cross traffic. I think to myself, why doesn’t this light change now when there is no cross traffic? If this were a stop sign, I would go. Then as soon as a wave of traffic approaches, THEN it changes.
I know it’s a purposeful timing issue. When I drive along these same roads late at night, the lights typically change instantly for the side roads (which is OK when there is no cross traffic). At the same time, during rush hour the cycles are synchronized. So, why aren’t they synchronized all the time?
G_d, I hate driving around here. I can’t wait to move and take my tax $ elsewhere.
Welcome to the People’s Republic of Virginia (the Communistwealth).
The problem is a lack of lobbying on the part of motorists (hear that AAA?), and the failure of politicians to see motorists as a political constituency. We need to organize and further the cause designing highways for the benefit of their users, which means almost everyone. Traffic rules should be determined by the principles of traffic engineering, and not local politics. Budgeting for items like traffic signal systems should be determined based on the overall benefit to society and dollars saved due to reduced accidents, air pollution, and lower auto operating costs.
Driving is a right. There isn’t anything called a ‘constitutional right’
Time to watch Constitution Class
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=constitution+class+for+patriots&sitesearch=
When I was in England and Switzerland earlier this year. they still use round-abouts in the smaller cities and towns and they work very well. Of course, they are also considerate drivers. They have just put round=abouts in a town nearby and the people are having a snit about it. They won’t even give it a try. Most inconsiderate.
I’m with Douglas G. – If it bleeds money… tax it, cite it, take it, by whatever means necessary. Welcome to the world of Democracy and Capitalism. Forget about it, nothing is going to change other than the money from your hand to the government.
A lot has been said about fines being used for tax revenue. This idea is not fool-proof but would be a substantial start. First, cities and localitys receive NO money from tickets. Furthermore, money from fines is collected at each state level, separated, and then distributed as a discount on every person’s following year vehicle registration as either an equal amount per vehicle or pro-rated percentage of registration fee. This plan is not perfect as legislatures would then raise fees knowing a discount was coming, but would be an improvement and yet still keep $ from local fine generation schemes.
We need a (800) phone number that becomes well known in each state where the public can report traffic engineering inefficiencies at will and the head of traffic engineering departments should be an elected, non-partisian office with a term of no more than two year before reelection.
I have long maintained and have written legislation aimed at the OK and TX state legislatures that would send all fines, court costs, admin fees, special services fee, victim’s compensation, indeed any fee connected to a traffic citation, from ALL jurisdictions within the state to a public corporation that distributes it as scholarships to state universities.
This way, the economic disincentive is maintained for drivers, the economic incentive for jurisdictions is removed, the money is kept in the state and everybody benefits from a more educated populace.
To help alleviate speeding, the cities should put speed indicators on every street.
IF they are truly interested in safety, here is an answer.
They wont do it because the money from tickets will disappear.
I remember in Clark County back in Ohio, there was at one point a small town outside of Springfield that got cited and eventually had its entire police force taken by the state for creating illegal speed traps as a source of income for the town. This sort of thing needs to happen more so that citizens are not taken advantage of.
James, while I couldn’t agree with you more with your proposal, I don’t however believe that it’ll fly legislatively without creative lobbying. The Oklahoma Municipal League will jump on this like a lion jumping on a squirrel. To the public these little known municipal organizations (I believe most states have one) affects all our lives immensely and that includes traffic control issues. I like to mention them every chance I get because this is one organization that needs to see a lot of sunshine in public… “in light” of it’s importance. They bare a heavy footprint in most state legislatures. And if you think they like the driving public….think again. The only thing they like about us is our money. Compounding the problem in Oklahoma, believe it or not, one municipal organization is not enough! We must have one for each section of the state. In this part of the state we have another relatively unknown important organization know as (INCOG), the Indian Nations Council of Governments. While they do perform other useful services to its member governments, it also has a lobbying program. I believe my town mayor was on it for a while. James I’m sure your familiar with both.
I’m sure in ‘07 the Municipal League teamed up with the Department of Public Safety. The DPS wanted to get out from under their duties, under the law, to kick their cronies off the prime speed trap roads to revenue. Together they had a lot to do with pulling the remaining teeth that our already a poor speed trap law had. No cites or towns have been charged since this law was skillfully altered, yet nothing has changed enforcement practices, the speed traps persist. Ever wonder why people no longer have any confidence in our justice system or our governments. If you think the people of this country control their governments’…think again. Can you say LOBBY, and I’m not talking about the motel type. They are now often referred to as the unwritten, fourth branch of our government. Wake up people. Rome lasted a 1K years. We’ve got a long way to go and it’s already not looking too promising. We better quite running around the world trying to put democracies in places where they aren’t wanted. We need to clean our own act up first. You can slice it, dice it, roll it or otherwise try to change the looks of it but the connection we see between money and the enforcing entities amounts to nothing more than plain old third world corruption and it’s getting worse, not better. Getting fresh out of civics class you might think we have such a great government…until you live (and drive) many years and see the reality of it.
Because of the recent squabble of school funding I emailed my fine state legislative team and ask them to support diverting all revenue, generated by traffic control, to our school system. There was so much glee to my suggestion that the response was…..well nothing. To be expected.
I live along Route 17 south of the James River in Virginia. If you drive the speed limit coming off the bridge; and make it to the first light while it is green, you will proceed through all the lights into Chesapeake without stopping. If you speed, as a considerable number of the drivers do, you “accordion” at every light. I have barely had to slow down at each intersection because I don’t break the law.
This is an approach that I have believed would work for a long time. The positive affects you get are actually squared. Let’s do a hypothetical analysis. If we assume that the average commute in a large city involves 200,000 vehicles and is 30 minutes long and that timing the lights would save each one of them 1 minute. This amounts to 200,000 vehicle minutes not on the road for each rush hour. This means that there will be fewer cars on the road an any given time so that the congestion is further reduced and the commute time gets even shorter. Let’s assume that this also saves an additional minute. If we also assume that these vehicles are averaging 25 mph and getting 15 mpg then our “average” vehicle is consuming 1.67 gallons of gas per hour or 0.056 gallons of gas saved per vehicle in the 2 minutes the commute was shortened. This amounts to 11,133 gallons of gas saved per rush hour in all 200,000 vehicles. If we then extend to 2 rush hours per day, 5 days per week, and 50 weeks per year we then have 5.6 million gallons of gasoline saved per year in our hypothetical city. At $4.00 per gallon, that amounts to $22 million saved. Not bad. If we add in all the air pollution not generated by these vehicles not idling at traffic lights and not accelerating away from them and all the brake dust not spread around by these vehicles not stopping at red lights and we have even more reason to do this.
[...] income source. Engineering improvements that lessen the income brought in by the cameras include traffic-light synchronization, the elimination of unneeded lights and partial deactivation of other traffic lights during periods [...]
Am in the process of creating my own blog entitled “Traffic lights waste your time and money” but find this one more than adequate. In putting mine together, I found that drivers in most countries, England, Australia, Hawaii, have pretty much the same complaint; governments that are incapable of traffic light synchronization, or who are merely pawns of the oil, automobile, and spare parts industries.
At some point we need to begin to pressure the Sierra Club, AAA, The National Television Stations and any other mass media into bringing this travesty to the general public. Most people, in the back of their minds, know there is something wrong with the system, but actually believe there is no correction at hand. I’ve actually had people argue that if there was a fix, government would have fixed it already. How incredibly naive! This system feeds the local, county, and state governments inexhaustible cash and allows them to step up enforcement anytime the larders begin to empty. A more enlightened public is needed to begin the ground swell that will bring this nonsense to an end.
It’s going to be here. The CFTS whether someone doesn’t want it or not. The 40,000 that that are lost every year are going to be reduced dramatically. It the CFTS and We/the Foundation are going to save lives, eliminate accidents, traffic jams, and road rage. A foundation has formed no thanks to me for it, but what’s going to come out of it is 21st century, and going to take our expectations above and beyond, and all accommplish all that it says. I, Joe Di Medio/CFTS says please, maintain correct distances with all speeds at all times. It is thee number one that is going to help make the difference
I’ve seen many cities that do REVERSE synchronization: If you drive the speed limit when the light turns green, you can guarantee that the next intersection will turn red AS SOON AS YOU GET THERE. If you speed by at least 10 mph, you’ll get through as it turns yellow.