Pedestrian traffic light: types and photos

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The idea of installing traffic lights at street intersections to regulate traffic belongs to Londoner John Peak Knight. By profession, he was a specialist in railway semaphores.

Several historical facts

The first traffic light was designed and installed on a London street in 1868. The signals in it were switched manually by two arrows. Their horizontal position meant "stop", at an angle of 45 degrees. - permission to move cautiously. To distinguish semaphore signals in the darkness of the night, a gas lantern was used. Rotating, it shone green or red.

The automatic traffic signal switching system was invented and patented in Chicago in 1910. A couple of years later, drivers got acquainted with the first electric traffic light, which has signal lights of the now familiar green and red colors. Oddly enough, this invention was not patented at the time.

What were the first traffic lights

Slowly the streets of the largest American cities (Cleveland, New York, Detroit) began to acquire traffic lights. Most of them had two signals - red andgreen, launched by specially assigned police officers sitting at intersections in glass booths.

Then, in 1920, they began to use the yellow signal in their designs. In Europe, the first traffic lights were installed in Paris, Hamburg and the cities of England. Countdown designs appeared only in 1998, it happened in France.

In our country, the first traffic lights were installed at the beginning of the thirties of the last century. The very first was installed in Leningrad at the intersection of streets now known as Nevsky and Liteiny prospects. It happened at the beginning of 1930. Approximately a year later, the first copy of the traffic light was launched in Moscow, at the intersection of the Kuznetsky bridge and st. Petrovka.

Role of traffic lights for modern transport

Today, traffic on the roads is unthinkable without such a powerful tool for its planning and organization as traffic lights. Their main tasks are to optimize the quality of traffic on the roads and achieve a high level of safety. Traffic light regulation is the most important tool of the general concept of traffic, consisting of measures for the optimal organization of the distribution of traffic flows, the safety of pedestrians and cyclists and the use of specific routes by vehicles.

For safety reasons, they are installed in places where the probability of an accident is high, which can only be reduced by a constant regulation device. And also in cases when other measures (installation of signs prohibiting and limiting the speed of movement, devicepedestrian crossings) are not efficient enough.

Traffic lights must be installed in places where the priority rule is often not respected when passing through intersections. And also where the traffic is characterized by high speed or intensity, with limited visibility and difficulties in determining the rules for the priority of travel, with a low capacity of the road section.

Their other role

Transport traffic lights, in addition, perform certain environmental tasks. For example, the so-called green wave aims to maintain a uniform traffic flow and reduce the number of stops.

This reduces fuel consumption, reduces emissions and noise from moving vehicles. This factor is important in large cities on the streets with heavy traffic. Traffic lights also play an important role in ensuring the safety of cyclists and pedestrians.

What are they like

By type and purpose, there are a huge variety of traffic light models. There are modifications with and without arrows, two or three light signals, installed on railway crossings or bicycle paths. These are all traffic lights. A pedestrian traffic light is arranged exclusively for the safe movement of people on the roadway.

The most familiar, widespread types of them are road street. A pedestrian crossing with a traffic light can be found onroad of any country.

How a traffic light works

As you know, all three traditional colors - green, yellow and red - are usually used in car designs. When the traffic light is vertical, red is always on top, green is always on the bottom. With a horizontal arrangement, it is located to the left of all red, to the right - green. Part of the car is equipped with an additional section.

What is the purpose of the yellow signal? For car traffic lights, this means the following: passing the stop line is allowed, but the speed of travel to the section regulated by the traffic light must certainly be reduced. That is, the driver must be prepared to switch the traffic light to red. This signal in a number of designs can be orange.

Types of regulation

Traffic control with traffic lights can also be different. With constant regulation, its mode is not subject to change and does not depend on the time of day or day of the week. The other kind is adaptive. To a certain extent, it depends on the size of the traffic flow. In this case, either the sequence, or the number, or the duration of the signal switching phases can change.

With other forms of adaptive regulation, all three indicators can change. The mode called the green wave is possible only with constant regulation or adaptive with varying duration of the light phases.

What about people?

Now consider a non-transport - pedestrian traffic light. They are officially installedregistered pedestrian crossings. As a rule, they are equipped with only two signals - allowing and prohibiting. In appearance, designs for people may differ slightly from each other. The most famous pedestrian traffic light is in the form of human silhouettes - green (walking) and red (standing).

In other countries, there may be other designations. For example, in the United States, a raised palm is a red signal. Sometimes, instead of a palm or little men, you can see the inscriptions "stop" and "go." On the streets of Oslo, the prohibition signal of a pedestrian traffic light looks like a pair of red human figures standing side by side.

All these difficulties imply convenience for people with visual impairments or those suffering from color blindness, that is, they have poor color discrimination. For the same purpose, in most countries, pedestrian traffic lights are usually duplicated by sound signals.

Let's talk about its design

What is the design of a pedestrian traffic light? There are several options here. One of them is based on incandescent or halogen lamps. A pedestrian traffic light in this case consists of the actual lamp with a reflector, a light filter, a Fresnel lens and a protective visor.

Other widely used traffic lights are based on LEDs. They have certain advantages, namely: a brighter color, a reduced likelihood of stray light. In addition, they are less susceptible to destruction - in the event of a failure of a single LED, the entirethe rest of the design remains operational.

In addition, the design of such a traffic light is simpler and consists of an LED matrix, anti-vandal glass and a visor.

Pedestrian traffic lights T 7

According to statistics, a quarter of all collisions with pedestrians occur at pedestrian crossings that do not have traffic lights. At dusk and at night, it is sometimes difficult for drivers to notice a pedestrian crossing in time. What can be done to improve the safety of unregulated crossings?

The best way out at the moment is to equip such crossings with T7 type traffic lights. These are yellow LEDs. They are able to be seen by the driver from afar. And by means of a pulsed LED indication, such a traffic light at dusk or in the dark will unmistakably warn the driver about the approach of a pedestrian crossing and the need to reduce speed. As a result, it is much safer to cross the road at the signal of such a pedestrian traffic light.

Such a traffic light is powered by the mains, the cost of its installation mainly falls on the procedure for laying the cable and the cost of the latter.

Solar-powered traffic light

An even more effective solution could be a solar-powered LED traffic light. The cost of its installation is half that of cable laying and fits into the amount of 40-50 thousand rubles. In addition, there is a significant savings on electricity.

Solar-powered pedestrian traffic light these days -achievement of the most advanced technologies. Installation of this design does not imply digging a trench, connecting the cable to the mains and protecting it, paying for electricity.

What are the benefits?

Unmatched set of LED traffic light and mini solar power plant. Such a traffic light at a pedestrian crossing can be placed on the road sign itself and will start working immediately after installation. Its battery life is at least 8 years without any maintenance.

Due to low power consumption, such traffic lights are durable, its battery can work without recharging in sunlight for three days.

During daylight hours, the battery is charged by a powerful solar battery. The charging process takes place even in winter or in cloudy weather. Thanks to the built-in controller, the battery never runs out of juice.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that in Russia there is even a special traffic light monument! The sculpture was installed in 2006 on a street in Novosibirsk.