Does anyone know whether Traffic Lights have an "intelligent" function that enables them to alter the sequence to take account of the traffic volumes and direction.
The reason I ask is that I spend a lot of time driving around Edinburgh in the early hours of the morning when there are very few cars on the road.
It is really frustrating to be pulled up at lights and sit waiting whilst no traffic emanates from the other junctions/roads covered by the same set of lights. No one has activated a pedestrian crossing either.
I'm sure they do. One set near where my parents live in Coatbridge clearly recognises when traffic is coming from one direction and adjusts accordingly. Another few sets here in Livingston do the same when I'm driving through at 2-3am. The technology definitely exists, but isn't used everywhere. I agree, it's infuriating. And it's wasting fuel and polluting the environment.
Of course, it's worth remembering that sequences can be more complicated than just one junction. The bridge under Kirkwood station, for example, is single track and controlled by traffic lights. However, there's also a set of traffic lights at a T-junction at one end of the bridge, with a relatively short section between the two (
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.8...0MN2Z8rWkfh3ngptWg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1, I can't explain it very clearly!). The two are clearly set up so that the traffic keeps moving and doesn't get stopped under the bridge, blocking it. So you can sometimes be sitting waiting for a while for seemingly no reason, but once you're through and under the bridge you'll arrive in perfect time for the light at the next junction to go green. In fairness, I've driven through there probably thousands of times and I've never seen it not work well.
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Traffic light sequencing is quite an interesting field. For instance, say you have a roundabout with signals, traffic flows best if exactly one road from the roundabout is not signal-controlled.
Someone might want to suggest to North Lanarkshire Council and Aberdeen City Council - by far the two biggest offenders in my experience:
1) Don't put pedestrian crossings 20 feet from roundabouts
2) If you are going to do it, make it a proper signal controlled junction with proper sequencing!
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Personally I think on some roads traffic lights should switch to have a flashing amber in the early hours effectively telling drivers to treat it as a normal junction and proceed with caution.
Disagree. I don't think it would work well. It's not always clear at some junctions which road would have priority. And, as has been said, plenty of people would just ignore them and drive on through.
I think it's better to have the existing technology, that keeps traffic lights working the same way they currently do, but alters the sequence according to demand. It's reasonably widespread, so I can't imagine it's too expensive, and it doesn't rely on adding a new rule to the Highway Code.
