r/trafficsignals

My town has these "smart" turn signals so that if someone isn't in a turning lane, say, 3 seconds or so before the light change, no turn arrow appears and you just get a straight green. Fine, its a good technology and I am glad its there. But IF IT EXISTS....why cant it work in reverse? Why is the "turning off" of the green arrow tied simply to a timing metric and not to whether or not there are still people in the turning lane trying to turn? So many times I'll be like the 5th car, 4 get to turn (its a very short arrow), then before I get to turn the light changes. Why can't the same technology ensure that the arrow doesn't go away until the last car turns?

This is a question for engineers, technicians, anyone else who is interested.

Now that all the software works more or less the same way, is there even any kind of untouched point that manufacturers can offer any solution for? Surely the experience cannot be that different since all of the ATCs have cross-vendor compatibility now thanks to the NTCIP. What kind of differences have you observed if you have experience with ATCs?

just curious

Hi All,

I work as a Traffic Design Engineer for a state DOT. One of the knowledge deficits we keep running into is an understanding of electrical systems. As a Civil Engineering graduate, I've never taken a course on electricity, but the lighting and traffic signals we design obviously require that understanding. Of course, we know some essentials (voltage drop, wire sizing, powering cabinets and luminaires, etc), just lacking the foundational understanding that many other engineers would have obtained from courses like EE 101 or Circuits 1&2, etc.

So, is there a reputable course out there that could be construed as "electric engineering for civils/traffic engineers"? Looking for something like a 1-3 day course, not a full semester's worth of classes.

My wife was in a car accident and I'm becoming very frustrated with our insurance carrier so I'm taking matters into my own hands to help figure out the facts of what happened. I received the high res controller event logs from the DOT today and have done my best to translate them to something I can understand but would love some help in defining the "plain english" meanings of these.

I'm using these definitions that I found but I want to make certain that I have it right and thought this community might be able to help. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/jtrpdata/3/

I have the signal Phase plan here:

https://preview.redd.it/235flr177gzg1.png?width=2679&format=png&auto=webp&s=171b9bd0108740404ed1ed12763ff29df1847296

And a sample of the logs are here (sorry I'm not sure how to share the file while maintaining my privacy) I think I'm mostly interested in Phase 5 and 6 which I think are the left turn lane and the oncoming Eastbound lanes??

https://preview.redd.it/j4r0wzk59gzg1.png?width=3306&format=png&auto=webp&s=a74aa1c5bb6b1a62a0671b246df9f29c66f7cd87

Your expertise in helping me define the plain English definitions would be much appreciated!!

To appease the auto moderator gods: I am NOT seeking legal advice, just wanting to gain a better understanding and hopefully educate myself about traffic signals and intersection phasing along the way!