The emergence of new requirements from different user groups characterises the recent developments in the area of traffic signal control. Apart from car traffic, the needs of public transport users as well as pedestrians and others have to be considered and to be balanced. This paper refers to one of these developments, partly funded by the European Union in Brussels, and which involves some interesting trialling work in a number of cities. The new traffic adaptive signal control method BALANCE, designed in Germany at the Technical University of Munich, takes account of the new requirements and was developed with consideration of the experience available from the operation of various adaptive control methods over the last two decades. The objectives of BALANCE are to integrate signal control into the management of the whole road transport network and especially to help traffic authorities to exercise policies which assist multimodal network operations, not just cars. First field trials were performed in Munich in the framework of the DRIVE/ATT program and showed significant benefits for both car traffic and public transport when comparing BALANCE with vehicle actuated control. The method has now been further improved and is being tested in four European cities to demonstrate its applicability to different European environments and its interoperability with various hardware and software platforms. Microsense Systems Ltd are developing the system with the German consultancy TRANSVER with the co-operation and commitment of the various city administrations. This paper focuses on the results of the project to date.
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