We understand that as members of the public, you probably have a lot of burning questions regarding the roads around Buckinghamshire. Well, we're giving you the opportunity to get your questions answered by Transport for Buckinghamshire's Contract Director!
This is the 9th blog post that we have produced focusing on the questions that you have been asking, this week we are looking at:
Why are the traffic lights only letting two cars through?
There are currently over 200 traffic signal sites in Buckinghamshire. These are a mixture of traffic signal controls, from large junctions to pedestrian crossings.
All traffic signals rely on sensors that react to vehicles and pedestrians. Some of these sensors are controlled by their own internal control system, whilst others are coordinated from County Hall in Aylesbury on a centralised system, connected by telephone communications.
Throughout the day the signal timings at each junction are varied according to demand. This allows us to control traffic levels across the county. Whilst this has been done for many years, the systems we use are gradually becoming smarter and more effective, especially at times of high demand. Strategies can be set to bias the timings for a particular route or main road, and coordination is automated to determine the best signal timings for a group of junctions considered together. This can be why you sometimes feel you are being kept waiting at a red signal for no apparent reason!
For example; If there's a red signal and on the other side of the signal is a queue of traffic, we don't want to allow cars through just to join the queue! This means we might make a red signal last a little longer, and only let through a small number of cars each time, to reduce congestion and help the traffic to flow a little better. When the traffic eases up, we can let more cars through at a time.
In addition to this, we utilise CCTV to watch the road network for congestion and accidents. When these things occur on the network, we intervene with the signals where necessary, to try to control the traffic building up.
