This issue of ITE Journal is dedicated to operations. Earlier in my career, operations meant optimizing traffic signal timing and coordination. It was my small part. I was a bit of a player in a much larger game that involved every part of keeping our transportation system functioning on a daily basis. In planning and design, we historically focused on typical days. However, our reality now is that few days end up being typical. Between incidents, work zone closures, emergency repairs, and special events—not to mention the impact of working from home—few days are normal anymore. Near where I live, sinkholes shut down a section of I-80 for months, leading to significant strains on alternate routes. Similar issues often occur due to planned or unplanned events.
For decades, most signalized intersections in the United States and Canada were stand-alone systems. In U.S. cities, at least, many of the signals that were connected to systems were not adequately maintained due to a lack of staff resources. The result was signal timing plans that had to assume what was going on with traffic based on what day or what time it was. There is a reason that most traffic signal optimization projects yielded significant reductions in delay!
In the late 1990s, I took a weeklong course at Georgia Tech about traffic signal coordination. When it came to adaptive signal systems, the instructor stated, somewhat cynically but accurately, that most adaptive systems were just expensive ways of doing what smart traffic engineers were already doing. He went on to express doubt that, at least in the United States, the detectors required would be properly maintained. The dream of getting green signals instead of red signals was synonymous with advancement. I’m sure everyone who waits for a red light when there is little or no conflicting traffic has thought, “Why do I have to wait?” I know I do. The song “New World Man” by Rush (a band I heard constantly on my favorite radio station growing up) starts with “He’s a rebel and a runner, he’s a signal turning green, he’s a restless young romantic, wants to run the big machine.”
Luckily, technology has been advancing rapidly to help us adapt to our new constantly changing environment. I used to joke that in my home state of New Jersey, ITS stood for “It’s Time for Something.” Now, the connecting of infrastructure and real-time performance measures are a thing. Real-time GPS navigation systems that are now ubiquitous provide road users with near-perfect information to reroute their travel around incidents—a once theoretical concept that would make transportation systems achieve true efficiency. Deployment of smart cities techniques is rapidly expanding. The theoretical result of leveraging big data within connected infrastructure would be a transportation system that can adapt in real time to whatever is going on, be it a lane closure on a parallel route, a sporting event ending, or an incoming snowstorm that leads to everyone heading home early at the same time.
How does this tie to safety (the one objective that unites us all)? When technology puts additional traffic loads on new facilities, risk exposures on those facilities are often increased, especially for vulnerable road users. Getting that diverted traffic back where it belongs as soon and as seamlessly as possible is in everyone’s best interest.