LA traffic lights get in sync to ease congestion

Los Angeles is moving forward with a plan to ease traffic congestion by synchronizing all of the city's 4,398 stoplights. While smaller municipalities have followed similar plans in the past, LA is the first major city to take a stab at getting all of its lights to play nice together. If it works, the new system could increase average traffic speeds by 16 percent and reduce travel times by 12 percent. We imaging reducing the amount of time cars spend idling at a stop light should help reduce fuel consumption by a decent margin as well.

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has said the move will reduce the city's carbon emissions by one metric ton while saving drivers one day of waiting in traffic at the same time. The system can also be utilized by emergency responders to reduce response times for ambulances and fire trucks.

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/02/26/l...stion-w-video/

 

While, of course, synch-ing the lights certainly won't hurt, when you get the kind of insane sprawl and traffic that you find in the SoCal/L.A. and D.C.-Baltimore areas, there's not really a whole lot you can do. Too many cars for a given stretch of road is simply too many, no matter how you time the lights.

 

It might not be super effective, but a good idea that i support none-the-less. Here in OC, there are a few places where the lights are sync and its a breeze to drive down those streets

 

The private sector would've thought of this a LONG TIME ago.

 

anyone remember being able to bet the lights to change by flashing them with the high beams. Sounds like BS but works. Supposed to help ambulances get through lights faster

 

I always thought this was a myth. The only sensors to my knowledge are the circular ones in the ground

 

I know here, the only emergency vehicles that can change the lights are fire trucks. They have a device made by 3M(I believe) that can change any traffic light. How I would love to get a hold of one of those.

 

I would love to get one also, I just wonder what the fine would be though

 

Some suburbs around Atlanta have synchronized traffic lights. I drive a stretch of road that has about a dozen of them and every morning I can tell how far I'll get before I hit a red light. Occasionally I can get green all the way through.

 

That may be an urban myth. There are pre-emption systems that use a strobe light (high frequency flashing light) on top of the vehicle and a receiver unit at the actual traffic light to be controlled. Some use visible strobe light and others use invisible infra-red light. I don't think the receivers would react to flashing high beams.

1. The receivers are set high up, at the height of the traffic lights. I don't think high beams could reach that high.
2. The receivers react to high frequency flashes (10 Hz -- 10 times a second -- or higher). I don't think anybody could flash their high beams that quickly.

 

They've had synchronized lights out in the Coachella Valley area (La Quinta/Palm Desert/Indio, ~3 hours south of LA) for close to 20 years, and it's great. You can easily go 5 miles or more, only stopping once.

 

gee what a concept!!!!

here in bass-ackwards Houston we just widen roads and build overpasses rather than sync the stop lights (downtown is timed, but it took an act of congress).

 

Downtown Houston's lights (at least in the northwest-southeast direction) have been synched for at least 40 years. Now and then some brilliant "traffic engineer" comes along and tinkers with the timing - which totally screws things up for a few weeks until they take them back to the default setting. I did it just yesterday, sailing through downtown on surface streets, watching that the speedo was locked onto 25-26 mph, and never even having to lift for lights. The trouble is that you don't know everything's been re-synched until you've driven several blocks while watching the lights carefully.

Then there's Main Street that today is dominated by our light rail service. If a train's coming, it gets the right-of-way - REALLY screwing up the lights as you cross Main. All the warning lights, whistles and bells are meaningless to the brain-dead motorist who is deeply involved with his phone, music, GPS (almost useless in city canyons) . . . as evidenced by our light-rail accident rate.

 

During late night and early-morning (pre-dawn) hours, when traffic is at a minimum, many lights don't need the red/yellow/green cycle at all.....they can simply be set on flashing red or yellow. A lot of jurisdictions, though, won't do that.....they keep the triple-cycle on around the clock, causing many stops for nothing.

 

sorry, they haven't been sync'd CORRECTLY for 40 years....I remember driving thru downtown a fews years ago and yes they were sync'd -- on Louisiana or Travis every light would turn green at the same exact f'ing time, so if you were going 300mph then yes, you could make every green lite.

Mayor Bill White made it a point to oversee the correct SEQUENCING of downtown houston traffic signals....and that wasn't 40 years ago.