Calgary Traffic Systems

[88CRX]

Originally posted by schocker
Watching cars turning left from 7th onto 5th ave, no bicycles in sight but you have to wait for the turn signal. 5 cars made it through.....because 3 ran the yellow/red to turn. Amazing.

The control of the traffic lights in this city in general is infuriating. I feel that in the year 2015 the technology should be advanced enough so light timing moves cars along quicker and more efficiently. Not the case.

[rage2]

Originally posted by 88CRX
The control of the traffic lights in this city in general is infuriating. I feel that in the year 2015 the technology should be advanced enough so light timing moves cars along quicker and more efficiently. Not the case.
It's because we are not making the investment in better traffic light technology. Last time I spoke with my traffic engineer friend, we don't even have a centralized system for controlling lights and timing, and the city has zero plans to upgrade the infrastructure. That's why after every hockey game, we have cops plugged into the localized timing boxes to adjust lights to get traffic to flow out of the Saddledome properly. It's also why downtown light timing was completely fucked after the floods and week long power outage. Took over a month to fix that one.

Technology has been there for centralized management since the 90's. Lots of cities have moved to smart systems, where you don't even need a traffic NOC and 20 engineers to run the whole thing.

[schocker]

Originally posted by rage2

It's because we are not making the investment in better traffic light technology. Last time I spoke with my traffic engineer friend, we don't even have a centralized system for controlling lights and timing, and the city has zero plans to upgrade the infrastructure. That's why after every hockey game, we have cops plugged into the localized timing boxes to adjust lights to get traffic to flow out of the Saddledome properly. It's also why downtown light timing was completely fucked after the floods and week long power outage. Took over a month to fix that one.

Technology has been there for centralized management since the 90's. Lots of cities have moved to smart systems, where you don't even need a traffic NOC and 20 engineers to run the whole thing.
That is what I have been thinking about. There are obviously sensors and ways to retrofit existing lights. If people care about the environment, properly timing lights would cut down a lot on idling of vehicles. Think about all the times sitting at a red with no other cars around. Perhaps some type of sensor to sense cars approaching if their light is red and switch it to green as opposed to only sensors in the road etc. Not sure if all the cameras around are capable of detecting that. I think downtown rushour is controlled manually though?

[firebane]

Originally posted by rage2

It's because we are not making the investment in better traffic light technology. Last time I spoke with my traffic engineer friend, we don't even have a centralized system for controlling lights and timing, and the city has zero plans to upgrade the infrastructure. That's why after every hockey game, we have cops plugged into the localized timing boxes to adjust lights to get traffic to flow out of the Saddledome properly. It's also why downtown light timing was completely fucked after the floods and week long power outage. Took over a month to fix that one.

Technology has been there for centralized management since the 90's. Lots of cities have moved to smart systems, where you don't even need a traffic NOC and 20 engineers to run the whole thing.

Being that I work for the City I have spoken to several of the people in the roads department and the equipmen they use is insanely old.. I'm talking like late 70s early 80s old. They don't want to replace it because well.. it works.

[danno]

Originally posted by rage2

It's because we are not making the investment in better traffic light technology. Last time I spoke with my traffic engineer friend, we don't even have a centralized system for controlling lights and timing, and the city has zero plans to upgrade the infrastructure. That's why after every hockey game, we have cops plugged into the localized timing boxes to adjust lights to get traffic to flow out of the Saddledome properly. It's also why downtown light timing was completely fucked after the floods and week long power outage. Took over a month to fix that one.

Technology has been there for centralized management since the 90's. Lots of cities have moved to smart systems, where you don't even need a traffic NOC and 20 engineers to run the whole thing.


That's not true we have a system that control can change the timings at most intersections. Why the cops go out is probably because of the shear volume and it's only for a hour.

The flood was a issue for sure but when all our equipment is under water it takes time to get back running again. I've never been apart of another cities signal electrical division but I think the guys did great.

We have cameras that detect cars, as well as loops in the ground. I wouldn't say our tech is old as most controllers are from the last 10 years. We have 2 I think that are from the 80s out of 1200 intersections that not bad. We swap parts out all the time.

[Mitsu3000gt]

^^ Why does it work so poorly then? Light timing on many light-heavy roads is absolutely horrendous (all of downtown, McLeod, 14th Street SW, etc. to name just a few) and countless high volume areas do not appear to be on sensors of any kind, based on how much time you have to sit at red lights when no other traffic is around. My complaints aren't directed at you, I'm just genuinely curious how it can be so bad if we actually do have all this newer equipment, cameras, and sensor loops? is it just bad programming?

[lasimmon]

Originally posted by danno



That's not true we have a system that control can change the timings at most intersections. Why the cops go out is probably because of the shear volume and it's only for a hour.

The flood was a issue for sure but when all our equipment is under water it takes time to get back running again. I've never been apart of another cities signal electrical division but I think the guys did great.

We have cameras that detect cars, as well as loops in the ground. I wouldn't say our tech is old as most controllers are from the last 10 years. We have 2 I think that are from the 80s out of 1200 intersections that not bad. We swap parts out all the time.

So then you are all just terrible at your jobs. Good to know.

[danno]

I don't design the timings that's for a engineer to answer. There is a method to their madness, whether me or you agree with it.

The odd intersection has loops In The road that are broken and in that case will always see a car and call the signals to change. I can't say for curtain what the issue is you are complaining about id have to be there to see it.

[rage2]

It works so poorly because it's a localized system, and not a centralized system. The set of lights at one intersection can't tell what the set of lights are doing at the next intersection. There's a traffic operations center, but it's completely passive. Need to fix/change light stuff, they'll call in someone to go out and make the changes.

Yes there are loops in the ground, but all that does is to slightly modify the localized light timing schedule. Bikers know this well, loop doesn't detect them on the road, the lights will never change. There are cameras throughout the city now, but that's not for vehicle detection either.

That's why it works so poorly.

[codetrap]

.

[danno]

Control can change timings for most signals from their central command, in cases where they can't they get us to go out and change them.
Signals don't know which each other are doing but the timing window should keep them in sync. If you pull up at a specific time the lights won't change but a few seconds earlier you may get your green as the timing has allowed it because the next light should be green as well. Kinda hard to explain. 95% of the cameras at intersections are for detection. Where bike lanes are they also detect bikes.

It's not perfect that's for sure. If you guys have problems with the timings of lights that's what 311 is for

[rage2]

Originally posted by danno
Control can change timings for most signals from their central command, in cases where they can't they get us to go out and change them.
If they can change at central command, that's definitely new. I'm assuming it's for a small # of lights at this stage?


Originally posted by danno
Signals don't know which each other are doing but the timing window should keep them in sync.
That's the biggest problem, a static timing schedule is so 80's. It doesn't work well because if there's a problem in 1 place, the static schedule literally bottlenecks everything else. For downtown, there's a "problem" every few mins when a C-Train drives by along 9th street. Every light along 9th street bottlenecks everything out of downtown heading westbound on a daily basis since forever. Winter, forget about it. One guy on all seasons going really slow off the lights will mess everything up for the rest of the day because the system can't adapt.

Another off thread off topic. :)

[kenny]

Originally posted by rage2
Yes there are loops in the ground, but all that does is to slightly modify the localized light timing schedule. Bikers know this well, loop doesn't detect them on the road, the lights will never change. There are cameras throughout the city now, but that's not for vehicle detection either.

I think all new intersections use cameras instead of ground loops for vehicle detection as it is more reliable. Remember reading that somewhere, but now I can't find the source.

[88CRX]

Example.... heading southbound on Macleod Trail later at night and you want to go east on Glenmore and its always backed up.

Left turn is advanced green only, 5 cars get through then its red. Northbound Macleod Trail cars then get the green and 20 cars roll through then there's no traffic coming north for a minute while the left turn cars pile up.

I haven't really driven 12th ave yet but I imagine this is 100% the case there as well. Why can't a sensor or camera or someone monitoring traffic situations on a regular basis modify this stuff? Run the advanced green for double the time and shortly the straight thru green light. Its not fucking rocket surgery!

/ rant.

[speedog]

So many expert opinions on something that most know nothing about - I imagine that danno must be getting quite a chuckle out of all of this. Traffic light management is most certainly a very complex science, if one wishes to call it that, and I would imagine that there is much, much more to it than the uneducated eye sees.

[J-D]

Originally posted by speedog
So many expert opinions on something that most know nothing about - I imagine that danno must be getting quite a chuckle out of all of this. Traffic light management is most certainly a very complex science, if one wishes to call it that, and I would imagine that there is much, much more to it than the uneducated eye sees.

Yeah, the traffic counters were on Memorial this morning with their silly little orange beacons. Our city is so high tech :rofl:

[speedog]

Originally posted by J-D


Yeah, the traffic counters were on Memorial this morning with their silly little orange beacons. Our city is so high tech :rofl:
So you actually believe that there is technology out there that can actually replace what a number of human beings can do in those situations?

Shit, any line of work I've been involved in there's just some things that humans can still do better than technology.

[88CRX]

Originally posted by speedog

So you actually believe that there is technology out there that can actually replace what a number of human beings can do in those situations?

Shit, any line of work I've been involved in there's just some things that humans can still do better than technology.

I'm confident there is... if not I feel like someone could get extremely rich designing a system that monitors, tracks and make recommendation or changes to the current signal timing.

How isn't that technology out there when google maps already tracks traffic flow. Fuck we've landed on the moon, why can't we control traffic lights better haha.

[kenny]

Originally posted by 88CRX


I'm confident there is... if not I feel like someone could get extremely rich designing a system that monitors, tracks and make recommendation or changes to the current signal timing.

How isn't that technology out there when google maps already tracks traffic flow. Fuck we've landed on the moon, why can't we control traffic lights better haha.

Driving around Foster City and Redwood Shores in the Bay Area at night is awesome. There is no wait as the signal immediately changes to green when I approach. On main streets, if there is a break in traffic the light goes red right away so vehicles at the other lights can proceed. There is no wasted time where no vehicles are moving through the intersection.

No idea what a system like that costs to implement nor if Calgarians would stomach such a cost. They tend to bitch about taxes, but then also bitch about stuff we don't have that tax money pays for.

[danno]

Originally posted by speedog
So many expert opinions on something that most know nothing about - I imagine that danno must be getting quite a chuckle out of all of this. Traffic light management is most certainly a very complex science, if one wishes to call it that, and I would imagine that there is much, much more to it than the uneducated eye sees.
No laughing as I feel their pain. A lot of it is drivers that are asking to much Imo. Like I said I don't engineer timings, we enter them when we need to and maintain the signals.

Everyone is a expert when it doesn't do what they want, so I'm the idiot. Haha
I need to go to a major city like la and see how their signals work to tell you ours doesn't work well.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by speedog

So you actually believe that there is technology out there that can actually replace what a number of human beings can do in those situations?

Shit, any line of work I've been involved in there's just some things that humans can still do better than technology.

Have you ever watched those people? I would have more faith in the accuracy of even the crappiest of automated systems :rofl:

Also don't those rubber strips they lay across the road count traffic?

[speedog]

I'm not going to even pretend I'm an expert on traffic counting but I wonder what the possibilities are that these people are separating out personal vehicles from motorbikes and light commercial and heavy commercial traffic? Buses? Taxis? Bicycles?

Can a rubber counting strip do any of this?

[rage2]

Originally posted by Mitsu3000gt
Have you ever watched those people? I would have more faith in the accuracy of even the crappiest of automated systems :rofl:

Also don't those rubber strips they lay across the road count traffic?
Believe it or not, we're actually paying 6 figure traffic engineers to count traffic. It's like a paid day off for them when someone calls 311 because they're the ones that get dispatched to sit at an intersection and do the counts.

Btw can a mod split this thread for traffic lights discussion? I'm on my phone and it's not easy. Thanks!

[HiTempguy1]

Originally posted by danno

No laughing as I feel their pain. A lot of it is drivers that are asking to much Imo. Like I said I don't engineer timings, we enter them when we need to and maintain the signals.

Everyone is a expert when it doesn't do what they want, so I'm the idiot. Haha
I need to go to a major city like la and see how their signals work to tell you ours doesn't work well.

This is actually a major subject in the field of Instrumentation (surprise!)

In short, traffic is complicated, mainly because humans are stupid and do stupid things, which add an incredible amount of variables to a system that has to anticipate the changes in those said variables.

When you start automating "one" intersection, you have to automate them all and tie them together with some sort of distributed system, or else usually what happens is the "fix" on one intersection just pushes the problem elsewhere.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Those people sitting in their own vehicles, usually beat up Aerostars and Caravans, reading a book while they're supposed to be counting traffic are Engineers? Or are they doing something else maybe?

[LLLimit]

Originally posted by Mitsu3000gt
Those people sitting in their own vehicles, usually beat up Aerostars and Caravans, reading a book while they're supposed to be counting traffic are Engineers? Or are they doing something else maybe?

They're usually engineering/transportation techs counting traffic, typically with hand held tally counter. I believe they are counting number of vehicles with 2, 3, and more axles, keeping track of time of the day as well.

The rubber hose on the road registers # of axle hits, they will figure out volume or number of vehicles, potentially with the transportation tech counted #axles/vehicle, or use a standard coefficient.

Engineers in the office digest the numbers.
Smaller residential roads may use a number like 2.09 axles per "time", whereas larger arterial type roads will have a number like 2.74 axles per "time".

Then again I didn't go into this line of work, it was part of the highways transportation in school.

[rage2]

Originally posted by Mitsu3000gt
Those people sitting in their own vehicles, usually beat up Aerostars and Caravans, reading a book while they're supposed to be counting traffic are Engineers? Or are they doing something else maybe?
Yea, it's engineers that do that in their own vehicles. They drive beat up cars because they have to drive up on curbs and crap on a regular basis. The city doesn't hire counters @ minimum wage to do the grunt work. Not sure why, not very efficient.

I had no idea until a friend of mine got a job for the city in the traffic engineering group, and he told me about how things work.

[msommers]

Originally posted by kenny


No idea what a system like that costs to implement nor if Calgarians would stomach such a cost. They tend to bitch about taxes, but then also bitch about stuff we don't have that tax money pays for.

Forever a Calgary problem :rofl: :rofl: :banghead:

[codetrap]

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[speedog]

Originally posted by codetrap
It's not rocket science. It's routing & switching...if we can understand how the internet works, I'm sure we can understand traffic routing & switching.. Bits and bytes and such that make their intended destination readily available are quite a bit easier to control/direct/route than drivers we know nothing about with respect to where they're going. For most vehicular traffic, yes it's probably quite predictable or understandable, but I am quite sure that the CoC's traffic people are always seeing anomalies that don't fit their models and then outgo physical traffic counters to assist in figuring things out. My route home across 32km of the city often is not the same from day to day - I adjust based upon traffic I encounter and how exactly would one predict that?

[rage2]

Originally posted by speedog
Bits and bytes and such that make their intended destination readily available are quite a bit easier to control/direct/route than drivers we know nothing about with respect to where they're going. For most vehicular traffic, yes it's probably quite predictable or understandable, but I am quite sure that the CoC's traffic people are always seeing anomalies that don't fit their models and then outgo physical traffic counters to assist in figuring things out. My route home across 32km of the city often is not the same from day to day - I adjust based upon traffic I encounter and how exactly would one predict that?
This will answer all your questions.

1TZ0PlSonSw

Shows what Calgary is today (LA pre 1984) and benefits of an automated system. We don't have anywhere near the volume of LA, we don't need a 100% coverage system. We just need coverage in the core pain zones.

[jwslam]

Originally posted by schocker

That is what I have been thinking about. There are obviously sensors and ways to retrofit existing lights. If people care about the environment, properly timing lights would cut down a lot on idling of vehicles. Think about all the times sitting at a red with no other cars around.
And then when it's finally your turn, there's finally a car going the other way that just became red.

Originally posted by rage2
Yes there are loops in the ground, but all that does is to slightly modify the localized light timing schedule. Bikers know this well, loop doesn't detect them on the road, the lights will never change. There are cameras throughout the city now, but that's not for vehicle detection either.
I believe in a conspiracy theory that many lights cater to pedestrians as a priority so I get out and hit the button.

Originally posted by speedog
So you actually believe that there is technology out there that can actually replace what a number of human beings can do in those situations? Shit, any line of work I've been involved in there's just some things that humans can still do better than technology.
Of course but there has to be a middle ground between what we have now that's inefficient vs. paying someone 24/7 to watch each intersection. The technology won't be as effective as a human, but it will definitely be efficient and economical.

Originally posted by rage2
The city doesn't hire counters @ minimum wage to do the grunt work. Not sure why, not very efficient.
Because kids these days are incompetent at counting since they weren't told they were bad at math as we all fear their "feelings" would be hurt.

[benyl]

Originally posted by rage2

Yea, it's engineers that do that in their own vehicles. They drive beat up cars because they have to drive up on curbs and crap on a regular basis. The city doesn't hire counters @ minimum wage to do the grunt work. Not sure why, not very efficient.

I had no idea until a friend of mine got a job for the city in the traffic engineering group, and he told me about how things work.


I don't think they are all engineers:

http://metronews.ca/news/calgary/1042367/traffic-counters-the-backbone-of-calgarys-increasingly-data-driven-policies/

[LLLimit]

Look a traffic tech job!

https://recruiting.calgary.ca/psc/pdhr/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_CE.GBL?Page=HRS_CE_JOB_DTL&JobOpeningId=205846&PostingSeq=1&SiteId=1&

[Swank]

Originally posted by codetrap
It's not rocket science. It's routing & switching...if we can understand how the internet works, I'm sure we can understand traffic routing & switching..
There are a lot of drivers that should become dropped packets, that's for sure :nut:

[msommers]

Completely unrelated but I noticed Mitsu is sixth gear already :rofl:

[Mibz]

Didn't they implement an automated bicycle counter for the Peace Bridge? Maybe they were worried a human would be too good at that job.

[16hypen3sp]

Red Deer uses the SCOOT system for almost all their traffic signals. Toronto uses it at some intersections, and Halifax also uses it.

Like others have said, there are loops and cameras feeding into a system, but the SCOOT system is centralized and adapts in real time.

I have been in the Red Deer City Traffic Engineering Dept. and its pretty cool to see how it all works.

It accounts for delay. It was explained to me that what the system is trying to counter is time spent at a red light. You will be stopping and you may think that the flow is horrible but its about the length of delay that you are encountering at that specific light.

Going North/South on Geatz Ave in downtown Red Deer is a great way to see the system work. Almost always in synch with one another.

If the system loses contact with a signal, I think it just goes to a default timer and is now out of synch with the rest but that seems rare.

The downside, pedestrians always add delay to the system. I got to witness an example while I was in their control room… A woman had come along and pressed the button to walk westward. The north/south lights turned red, east/west turned green and she got her walk light. The east/west traffic cleared in about 15-20 seconds and she cleared the intersection shortly after… but the system still had to cycle through the remainder of the walk light and flashing hand light. Meanwhile, the N/S traffic were backing up because of the red light. There was no traffic E/W so really, no one was able to move and N/S traffic was experiencing a greater delay than normal for that intersection.

I was told that they have to give slow pedestrians the time required so they program the system to allow for that.

It would probably cost a lot of money for Calgary to implement the same type of thing.

[BavarianBeast]

Off the top of my head, I can think of 6-7 intersections that are backed up insanely due to poor traffic light engineering. Makes me boil everyday. There is a double turn light by my work, which a lot of people use to leave the area. Every time the double turn light turns green, nobody can fucking make the turn because the road we are all turning onto is already backed up. I've had to spend over 25 minutes just to move 25 cars.

[jwslam]

Originally posted by BavarianBeast
Off the top of my head, I can think of 6-7 intersections that are backed up insanely due to poor traffic light engineering. Makes me boil everyday. There is a double turn light by my work, which a lot of people use to leave the area. Every time the double turn light turns green, nobody can fucking make the turn because the road we are all turning onto is already backed up. I've had to spend over 25 minutes just to move 25 cars.
This: and when there is room for the cars to turn,they still can't because some ***** decided it saves them 3 seconds to claim their spot and block the intersection.

[bspot]

Originally posted by rage2

Yea, it's engineers that do that in their own vehicles. They drive beat up cars because they have to drive up on curbs and crap on a regular basis. The city doesn't hire counters @ minimum wage to do the grunt work. Not sure why, not very efficient.

I had no idea until a friend of mine got a job for the city in the traffic engineering group, and he told me about how things work.

The cars are beat up and rusty because they have to drive up curbs? :rofl:

I'm sure all the engineers driving their boring family SUVs can make it up the curbs just fine.

The cars are beat up because they are owned by poor students, like my buddy that used to be a part time traffic counter. He was not well paid.