Traffic signal systems in the future will be distributed systems with many of the attributes of central systems. The equipment at the intersection will contain the intelligence to operate the intersection with only minor supervision from a master. The intersection equipment will also collect information and deliver it to a central location for the Traffic Engineer to use. Communications will be a mixture of dial up phone lines, dedicated lines, fiber optics and radio. All of which will bring in a tremendous amount of data for the Traffic Engineer. There will also be more computer programs available to the Traffic Engineer to make use of the data. The combination of computer and communications will make traffic signal systems more efficient and maximize the traffic flow on the street system. (A)
Abstract