Intelligent traffic light systems not suitable in the canton

Traffic lights that detect when someone wants to cross the street on foot have been tested in the canton Basel-Stadt. The evaluation of the experiment cannot be transferred 1:1 to the Canton of Zug.

In a postulate, the ALG cantonal councillor (Alternative, Left & Green party) Tabea Zimmermann Gibson (Zug) and her party colleagues Luzian Franzini (Zug) and Andreas Hürlimann (Steinhausen) have invited the government to optimise the control of traffic lights for pedestrian and bicycle traffic. The control of traffic light systems is usually geared to prioritise motorised individual transport and public transport vehicles.

The postulates are based on a pilot test with intelligent pedestrian traffic control that was carried out in the canton of Basel-Stadt (Basle City) in December 2018. It turned out that the waiting time for pedestrians could be reduced to a third. In addition, there were positive effects for bicycle and car traffic, as the total time during which pedestrians had a green light was reduced by 11%.

Tests carried put on two Sundays
The evaluation of the Basel pilot test was limited to the viewing of five hours of footage from two Sundays, one of which was a public holiday. "This is because there is a high level of pedestrian traffic on Sundays, and the disruption caused by motorised and public transport is minimal due to the correspondingly lower traffic frequency," writes the Zug Government Council (Regierungsrat) in its reply to the postulate, and requests that this should not be declared to be significant.

The results with regard to car traffic are thereby not representative, which is why a certain caution is advisable when interpreting them. The times in which pedestrians had a red light had been set at 120 seconds for the Basel experiment. After that, the traffic lights switched to green.

Intelligent signalling systems are only partially suitable at most junctions in the canton of Zug (in the picture, the signal system at Alpenblick in Cham)                    Archive photo: Werner Schelbert
 

According to the operator, this maximum time of 120 seconds occurred several times during the five-hour survey period. In addition, there were about 25% of false registrations by vehicles (bicycles and scooters) or pedestrians who did not want to cross the street and who had stopped for conversations in front of the exit from the park.

Hardly suitable for junctions in Canton Zug
Based on the evaluation of the trial in Basel-Stadt, the intelligent control is "only suitable to a limited extent for traffic light systems at junctions where there is no clear direction of travel for pedestrians," says the government council.

But that is precisely the crux of the matter. In the canton of Zug, where traffic lights are mostly located at junctions that do not have a clear direction of travel for pedestrians, such systems are "a priori not suitable for the intelligent pedestrian traffic control described above".

This has also been shown by trials at two junctions (Aabachstrasse and Weststrasse /Landhausstrasse) in the canton of Zug. The waiting times there for pedestrian and bicycle traffic were manually reduced by up to half, the green times increased by a few seconds and, according to the government council, worked without obstacles.

The same thermal cameras used in the city of Basel to register traffic are also used in the canton of Zug. With the same reliability issues.

The Government Council is not completely opposed to the new system, and the Civil Engineering Office (Tiefbauamt) is constantly reviewing the use of new technologies, such as the current developments in the field of self-control of traffic light systems. The green time or the waiting time is weighted depending on the situation, based on the number of road users.

The automatic extension of the pedestrian traffic phase by means of video cameras is therefore provided for "in the tender for the replacement or renovation of the 'Landhausstrasse' traffic light system." The results will thereby be evaluated.