Your customers need to be able to get to your development easily and quickly. If they have to wait too long for their fair share of green light, fight congestion, and increase their drive time, they will bypass your development and go to someone else’s.

Technology is available to upgrade signal systems and synchronize timing so that signals sequentially turn green as one travels down a highway. This reduces congestion, commute times, pollution, and driver frustration. Is this technology being used?

The National Transportation Operations Coalition recently gave an overall grade of D- to the nation’s traffic signal system. This rating was based on input from 378 transportation agencies in 49 states. This poor grade indicates that not enough money is allocated for traffic signal timing.

“It’s not just about signals turning green, yellow, and red,” states Shelley Row, the Institute of Transportation Engineers associate director for technical programs. “Just because the signals change color doesn’t mean they are operating efficiently. The problem runs much deeper and can be fixed. With as little as a $4 investment per car each year, or one percent of funds spent annually on transportation, agencies can reduce delays and improve their grade to an A.”

If signals were upgraded to an overall grade of A, drivers would see:

• reductions in traffic delays ranging from 15 to 40 percent


• reductions in travel time up to 25 percent


• reductions in stops ranging from 10 to 40 percent

Improvements to traffic signals could also reduce fuel consumption by 10 percent. Nationwide this would amount to a savings of almost 17 billion gallons of fuel per year. Also, harmful emissions could be reduced by up to 22 percent.

In many urban areas, building new roads or widening existing roads is not an option due to the lack of available land, the cost associated with these types of projects, and environmental issues. Since 1980, vehicle traffic has increased 72 percent. In the same time, roadway capacity has increased one percent. One of the best options to handle growing traffic demands is to optimize existing transportation networks.

Traffic signal timing is a relatively inexpensive investment that will produce immediate benefits. It is an option that doesn’t require the acquisition of any right of way and there are no adverse environmental impacts.

Spending a few dollars can produce big benefits. Studies show that the benefits of investing in signal timing improvements outweigh the costs by 40:1.

If you are interested in upgrading your signal system or need a new traffic signal installed, contact Traffic Manager Lorenzo Rotoli, P.E., PTOE at (585) 334-1310, ext. 245 or lrotoli@fisherassoc.com.