Do traffic lights have the technology to allow emergency vehicles change the lights they're approaching to green?
by 
Merry Walker
ANSWERS: 3
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No, this is a myth that has been said for decades. Traffic lights at junctions use sensors in the road to work out the amount of traffic and sometimes change their routine to help the traffic flow. On temporary traffic lights there are Infra Red sensors to see if there is a car waiting, and change the lights if there is no one coming the other way, prior to the programmed time for a change. In various countries, different systems are used so there is no one type of traffic light system - There is a possibility that some countries have remote controls in their emergancy vehicles to change the lights, but it is unlikely as it is cheaper to train the emergancy crews on how to cross a wrong coloured light, than it would be if these light changing devices ended up in the wrong hands and caused an accident. This would open the door to a very expensive law suite!
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Yes, this technology does exist, and is used in MANY cities in the US. Currently, the leader in this market is 3M with their Opticom product. This product uses pulses of light to control the traffic signals. The light is mounted to the top of the emergency vehicle and a photo-receiver mounted near the traffic lights senses the pulses and adjusts the lights accordingly. The traffic lights can preprogrammed to repond in many ways, but the standard method is to change all of the lights, in the direction the vehicle is heading to green, making traffic flow and allowingt other drivers to move out of the way. This page provides some good information about Opticom: http://www.tcmfd.com/stuff/opticom.html This is a link to the 3M Opticom site. It's a long URL, so I don't know if it will work for everyone. If not, go to 3M's web site and search for Opticom. http://products3.3m.com/catalog/us/en001/safety/traffic_control/node_GSLQPZKT8Sbe/root_GST1T4S9TCgv/vroot_1PGXVVLN9Xge/gvel_C293P3NGDWgl/theme_us_trafficcontrol_3_0/command_AbcPageHandler/output_html Hope this helps...
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Yes, but more than that, ambulance and fire trucks can change the lights to green every time they leave their station. They also in some countries change lights as they come to an intersection. Also Traffic lights are programed to change depending on what time of the day it is. Also in built up areas, traffic controls can change the lights to either free up traffic flow and reduce "bottle necks"
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