Smart lights sought for Evans

High-tech gear planned for some Evans traffic signals could keep Columbia County motorists from having to wait too long at some red lights.

• Comments (4)
• E-mail
• 

• Photos

Back | Next

Jim Blaylock/Staff

Columbia County wants to computerize its traffic signals on heavily traveled roads. Cameras would replace sensors in the asphalt.

Back | Next

Jim Blaylock/Staff

Columbia County wants to computerize its traffic signals on heavily traveled roads. Cameras would replace sensors in the asphalt.

Advertisement

Using motion-sensitive cameras, computers and fiber optics, county officials intend to link traffic lights primarily within the Evans Town Center area to create an intuitive traffic control system.

"All those signals will talk to each other, and it will compile the data to know where the demand is biggest and what it needs to do to serve that demand," said Matt Schlachter, the interim director of Construction and Maintenance Services. "It will adjust appropriately to make sure that demand is met."

Upgraded lights will include those on Washington Road from the Evans Wal-Mart entrance to the intersection of Old Evans Road and those on North Belair Road from Hereford Farm Road to Industrial Park Drive.

As many as 25,000 vehicles travel that section of Washington Road each day, and nearly 20,000 travel that portion of North Belair Road, according to the most recent traffic counts.

The intersection of Washington and North Belair roads is the most heavily traveled in the county, traffic engineer Glen Bollinger said.

The traffic light upgrades are part of a $2.6 million widening project on North Belair Road between Washington Road and Industrial Park Drive, and they might be ready by next summer, Mr. Schlachter said.

Currently, traffic sensors embedded in the asphalt track the number of cars waiting to turn onto Washington or North Belair roads and transmit that data to the traffic signals.

Cameras will replace those sensors.

"It's basically the same thing as you have at a grocery store, above automatic doors," Mr. Schlachter said. "They're designed to look for a body to fill a certain area. When a body fills that area, the doors open, or the traffic signal changes."

More than just changing a red light to green, the system uses minute-by-minute analysis of traffic patterns to adapt signal lengths.

"With what we have now, a platoon of cars conceivably could go through a group of lights together and get through them all, but only under ideal conditions," Mr. Bollinger said. "They'd have to all be traveling at the speed limit, and no cars would be exiting or entering the road.

"This new system is dynamic. It is looking at the intersection, the cars going through, and tries to calculate how quickly that group will get to the next light and change it to green."

Mr. Bollinger stressed that the cameras won't be used for law enforcement purposes, but he does hope they can assist emergency vehicles.

"If an ambulance or fire truck is on Washington Road, we'll be able to monitor their progress and change the lights in their route to green to help them get to where they're going all that much faster," he said.

Once the system is operational, it will serve as a pilot program.

"Once we get everything worked out, we're going to plug this stuff in all around the county," Mr. Bollinger said. "It'll become part of a traffic management center allowing us to make day-to-day adjustments from a central office."

Reach Donnie Fetter at (706) 868-1222, ext. 115, or donnie.fetter@augustachronicle.com.