TRAFFIC-LIGHT RELIEF
John Wolf, the city’s senior manager of traffic operations, talks about new adaptive technology for traffic lights that can help save drivers time, money and the stress of sitting in gridlock. Windsor city council will be asked Monday to spend $569,000 on a system that quickly responds to traffic jams.
Windsor council is being asked to spend $569,000 on a system that recognizes traffic jams and immediately tweaks surrounding signal lights to get cars moving.
The adaptive technology can help save drivers time, money and the stress of sitting in gridlock. Reports out of Toronto suggest that for every dollar spent improving signal timing, the average driver saves $64 annually on gas, vehicle wear and tear, and maintenance, said John Wolf, Windsor’s senior manager of traffic operations, parking and transportation planning. Co-ordinating the signals along busy streets, like Tecumseh Road, allows a motorist driving from the eastern edge of Windsor to the downtown to hit maybe two or three red lights while going through 20 signalized intersections.
When traffic gets heavy, the adaptive system would take over and adjust the length of signals to reduce congestion.
“It responds to real-time conditions,” Wolf said of the Kadence Adaptive Signal Control Technology city council is being asked to approve Monday. It’s the culmination of 15 years of technological upgrades to the computer system that controls the city ’s traffic lights on main arterial roads. Last year, the city finished a four-year job installing a video detection system along six major corridors to collect data on traffic patterns. Until now, that data has been used to develop timing plans annually for arterial roads, which involves fine-tuning traffic signals to help traffic flow during rush hours, shift changes and quieter periods.
But sometimes, something unexpected — a snowstorm, a car crash, school getting out early or a change in shift times at a big plant — causes gridlock.
“If traffic conditions change, adaptive is able to deal with that in a much more effective manner and in real-time conditions,” said Wolf. Fed by the video data, the Kadence system would immediately recognize when congestion is getting bad.
Then the system can mitigate it by using different strategies to reduce stops and delays, Wolf explained.
The strategies include cycle tuning, which involves changing the length of time between the start of a green light and the next time the light turns green. This allows more cars to move through an intersection before the light turns red. There’s also cycle selection. If rush hour starts a half-hour earlier than normal, Kadence can turn on its rush hour cycle length a halfhour earlier. And split timing adjusts traffic signals so the amount of traffic congestion is equal going in all directions. If a road is being jammed because there are too many cars trying to make a left turn, the left turn signal can be lengthened. If there was an accident blocking a lane during rush hour, Kadence would recognize the longer-thannormal queues and take measures to disperse them.
Subject to council approval, the idea is to introduce Kadence at up to 10 locations along one arterial road within four or five months, followed by evaluations and finetuning. A second phase would involve up to 10 more locations on a major artery that intersects with the first road. Once those 20 locations are working well, 20 more locations will be installed. Wolf said his staff hasn’t yet identified which corridor will be first. The corridors with video detection are Wyandotte Street, Tecumseh Road, Ouellette Avenue/Dougall Avenue, Walker Road, Lauzon Parkway, Howard/Division/Provincial, and Huron Church Road. “Video detection had to be done before you would do adaptive because detection — knowing how many vehicles there are, where they are, how long the queues are — is what drives the system,” said Wolf. Areas where congestion can get bad include: Dougall near E.C. Row Expressway; Walker Road; and sections of Tecumseh Road, including at Ouellette, Howard and Walker, and east from Jefferson Avenue.
If traffic conditions change, adaptive is able to deal with that in a much more effective manner and in real-time conditions.