How Do Traffic Signals Work? 

This! 😂

True

Hahaha correct 😅

you need to get a job driving a firetruck

Well in France, I have almost the opposite feeling (at least in the town I live, which doesn’t have a that large population). The traffic light is often green, and when it’s not, the red phase is relatively short.

Now we know if we can get there on time since he said how long yellow lights last :)

AMEN and then they could wind up blocking the intersection. 😡😡😡😡👎👎😡😡👎👎

The stupid reason why people do this is because of drag races, look at how the lights light up, they remind one to punch the gas lmaooo

When it turns red there’s a delay before the opposing light turns from red to green. When you’re caught at a yellow>red light, it’s been my experience that all the lights following it will also catch you on yellow>red just before you get to the intersection. Making a small trip into a long one, so next time you see yellow, punch the gas.

Unless you're in other countries that you actually must stop for an amber (yellow) light, unless doing so would cause a serious collision or accident. The UK, and other nations such as Australia, require stopping at an amber/yellow light as if it's red, unless doing so would be dangerous or impossible.

that's a pretty good imagination you have there. And it made me laugh reading it. Cuz it's something that I thought why didn't I think of that when I was young. Have a nice day and stay safe and healthy. God bless.

Look at 8:19, we see a photo of exactly that - an early traffic light manually controlled by a guy in a box under it. Of course the box is above the ground on a post with the light, not buried under the street. But imagine how expensive it would be to pay someone to do that at every intersection.

I thought when the wind was blowing the traffic lights up and down that they were dancing.

L 😞

Here in India we still have many areas were the traffic lights will be controlled manually

ATLANTA Delete that shit right now

Atlanta as well

Alex Haughton The joke was how bad Atl has bad traffic as well. I grew up in the city and I hated taking the interstate.

the M5 is a heart failure

@@gimmerqueen The 405 freeway is a blood clot

In the UK, too, we have Red -> Red + Amber -> Green -> Amber -> Red www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/light-signals-controlling-traffic

We need that here in the U.S. so bad.

*THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE* In Argentina the lights go from red to green and as a pedestrian you can end up trapped in the middle of the road. As always, Germany's three steps ahead.

No, what "we" (as in anywhere) needs is countdown timers telling you how many seconds are left on that particular stage so drivers who will be arriving at a red knows how long they'd have to wait so they can just slow down enough to never come to a complete stop at the lights.

There are many things that could be improved in many countries, but changing traffic laws is not easy cause that would require everybody to learn about those laws and train them. Things like the US were turning right despite red light is allowed in many cities can really help on some streets. There are also traffic-lights that tell the time till they switch again, and some where the light extends all over the pole to make it easier to see (i know some intersections where the ONLY light is like 7m high up and right above the stop-line. You have to keep 2-3 m distance and it is still hard to see)

Where I live most drivers do this (I don't) : Yellow: accelerate Red: go anyways Green: wait for the cars that passed with red

If you have money. All signals are green in India.

@Jadandlud Thailand police have their checkpoint placed 20 meters from the intersection. Who take the free lane on the left will be scanned and fined automatically. Nowhere to escape

@Jadandlud That's just sad. I always got caught with loose chain and not cleaning my car. for 200 THB. I cannot blame them. If I do i would lose another 200 for blaming cops. lol damn

@@grindarius661 trolling to the max

I imagine these will eventually filter into the USA.

in my country's capital its only for pedestrians

I would friggin' love if this came to the USA. That, and lights being timed (during peak, or normal traffic hours) so that as long as you went the speed limit, or just below, you would clear all the intersections in a sequence. punishing speedsters, and allowing for slower driving.

Yeah, in Poland for example!

Yes, but the problem with this is people will start accelerating when it's at >5 seconds of red and that's a recipe for disaster.

Sounds about the same as the traffic light on my street. It gives about enough time for 1 vehicle to pass through before it turns Red again right after it just turned Green a few seconds earlier. Your lucky to get one vehicle threw the intercection before the light changes back to yellow and then Red.

There's an intersection between a seldom-used side street and a main street in my town. They have the lights default to red on the main street and green on the side street and the sensors take a good 30 seconds to go from detecting a car on the main street wanting to go (with zero traffic on the side street) to changing the light so the main street traffic can go. Nine times out of ten, you're getting stopped at that intersection if you take the main street. It causes so much traffic right in downtown. I kind of think they designed it like that on purpose. The only reasoning I can figure is to force people to stop and see the downtown businesses and tempt them to make a turn down the side street instead of continuing on the main street.

There’s one T-intersection near my home that has like 5 seconds of green and 1-2 minutes of red. 🤯

@@NotSoCrazyNinja - I once spoke with a guy who works in the traffic control business and he said that such limits - nonsensical to the naked eye of most drivers - are often implemented on the territorial boundaries of legal entities, e.g. counties. They block or push traffic onto the other, to have less problems within.

There is one road I must take to go to my homeland. On the way back, you go from a 70 m/h road and there is a bend then there is a set of lights that change from green to red spending almost no time on amber. People either slam on, or skip the red. But the road crossing is also a 70 with the same problem. That road is dangerous

I wish my town would bother to synchronize its lights. Downtown, the lights seem to be synced to always go red as the signal before discharges traffic towards it.

... and in my hometown you only hit them all green if you drive 10 over. I swear it's just so they can hand out more citations.

The roads around me couldn't give a fuck about logic and just go off whenever they want to

In NYC the major Avenues are synchronized so you can go through many of them in a pack. However, this can only work in one direction, the other direction becomes an exercise in frustration.

the problem with that system is that if you hit one red light, then you pretty much get all red lights

Is that a JOB?

As a city skyline player I think so, too

im gonna have to call bluff on that one

@@tmoe_ow2523 ?? ok? dont really have any reason to lie. i work for my states department of transportation. I primarily do traffic signal design, signing, pavement markings, as well as in depth reviews on a bunch of different permits and certifications coming from private developers. dont be fooled by some 6+ year old minecraft stuff. then again, id still play it if i could find the motivation to sit down and place blocks for a few hundred hours like I use to.

@@TheAssassin409 he was joking though

No replies and 150 likes? Wow

Cities Skylines is the best game

Seems like fascinating work... how does one get involved?

​@orneryoverwatch7031 traffic design engineering - but video said with technology advancing, the jobs going to become computer based

Nothing is mundane if you put your curiosity to work!

I think all that real world video was stock footage, just like stock photos.

Honestly I thought it was boring and not straight to the point.

Nerds don't know the meaning of the word "mundane."

Eric B flippin hell the lonely chair video was cool

I live somewhere that relies on a lot of roundabouts as well, but only in fairly residential areas or slow-moving areas such as the roadways into a shopping center. They were confusing to get used to at first, but man, now, I’d take a roundabout over a traffic signal any day. However the giant ones in Europe on major roads with no defined lanes are so terrifying to me lol.

Perhaps it’s a bit of a stereotype, but people in Canada are simply better behaved. In parts of the US, people ignore the basic principles of yielding at the roundabout and think yield is a four letter word.

@@elbersed the higher the population the worse they behave in traffic. I'm from India. I can tell.

They're brilliant until a certain critical mass is reached. Then they are dysfunctional.

@@muthukumarannm398 I spent a month in the South of India. People seem to just do what they want regardless of traffic signals haha, and the horn is the insurance policy! Also, on my end of Canada, there are people who have been driving for decades that have no clue how to use a traffic circle to the point where there have been newspaper articles published reminding drivers of how to use them

Unless cars remain stuck in one lane even if there are more ones.

@@anse7288 traffic manager plugin helps alot :-)

@@anse7288 *8 lane road exists * Sims : one lane time

@@anse7288 usually means you have bad pathing

I came across this game only about 3 weeks ago. Perfect timing, I feel this video was released just for me!

Give a Cities Skylines player a realistic city and tell them to fix traffic without leveling that, this or those buildings and they cannot build there because that's a environmentally protected area. And they can't build a road there because there's a politically active group opposing it for some reason. Oh and you only have X amount of money to spend and you don't make it back just by plopping down some profitable zoning someplace. Engineers have it way worse than Skylines players have it. In many cases they can't even change streets to one way because people will actually complain.

Oh and Americans really hate roundabouts.

Cadde great point, but I’m sure he was just being sarcastic

@@thedankside2552 can i r/wooosh him already?

@@muramustudio6023 Nope.avi, because i already know he's sarcastic but most people won't and will take it to heart.

wait a second... this aint texas, i dont see horses and gunslingers

Yet*

THE STARS AT NIGHT ARE BIG AND BRIGHT

Finally a state where I’m from I will drink a beer to that

Yep

if im not mistaken, i believe usually that job is an police officers job.

Come to India. You can do it in rain as well

At 4:51, the dotted lines weren't white 😳

City Traffic Engineers should be forced to watch this, and then if they can't pass a test afterward, they should be barred from working on city works projects!!!

Well, highschoolers cannot be new drivers in my country. I still think our kids should learn about these things though

With a test afterwards.

Why? This explains how the things work not how to drive.

Foolish, everyone knows trebuchets are the superior car hurling device.

@@Taladar2003 put me in the screenshot pls

Ballistas > Catapults/Trebuchets. Better aim and accuracy. I personally would like to see them implement a complex series of trampolines and giant, upward-facing fans. Perfect for most modes of transportation!

Na those all are old school, we gotta use cannons

With trampolines as relays!

2stroke4me which is why, in my city, if you are at a red light for 2 minutes and no change in light, you treat it as a stop sign

Get a magnet... they work for me. I have a big magnet on all my scooters and motorcycles and once you know which signals have metal detectors you never have to wait. Try it out. You'll be surprised how well it works. Edit/P.S. : I used speaker magnets for my first 3 bikes, about 3in in size. They hold about 10lbs each. After they worked I bought large magnets designed as hooks for hanging stuff at home depot, also designed to hang about 10lbs. I tried small magnets but they didn't work, you have to go pretty big. I'm sure it will take a bit of experimentation based on the size of your bikes and your road detectors. Good luck.

@@TheReadBaron91 Which city, out of curiosity?

Random Dud3 Central Illinois. Applies to motorcycles (or those registered as a motorcycle in my case).

They don't work very well for my tiny daily driver car either. I have to position the engine over the sensor for it to detect the car lol. Even then, it can take minutes for some lights to change despite minimal to no cross traffic. Every time I have considered running the light, out pops a cop. I swear they're scoping the intersections just to catch people doing that.

I used to think roundabouts were a good idea until one was actually along a route I travel. I dread the damn thing and avoid it whenever I can.

@@angolin9352 outside/at the edge of the city I live in, on one of the major routs out of town, there are two roundabouts. They're great. There are two reasons for this: 1 they're pretty big, basically barely different from a one way road. 2 they've been put in a place where the roads that join up have about equal amounts of traffic, and are sized appropriately to handle that traffic. If the traffic flow gets too great, they'd need to be made bigger to keep working, and if it only increased on one set of roads the others would get choked out and it would be useless. Tiny roundabouts are Terrible. The town I used to live in was reasonably sized, strung out along a main road and a bit to either side. A motorway had been built that meant a lot of traffic bypassed the center of town, but that main road still had big freight trucks drive down it pretty regularly. Some genius decided that this was unacceptable (it had been the state of things and an utter non-issue for decades, mind you. If anything, it had reduced), and those trucks must be forced to use the motorway.... So tiny roundabouts were installed at a couple of the intersections. Of course, there wasn't really room for them, all they could do was shave some of the footpath off the corners so cars could go around the obstruction, but the turn was too tight, and the island too tall, for trucks to get through. This stopped the trucks, but also did the following: Made turning across oncoming traffic stupidly awkward Forced you to Break the Law every time you tried to go straight through or turn across opposing traffic, because it was a round about, but there was literally no Time to indicate accordingly due to the whole thing being too small (in practice people just ended up indicating as if it were a regular intersection) Meant that traffic coming from opposite directions turning across each other interacted, rather than not Killed the yearly Christmas Parade (and any other such events) because the Floats couldn't pass Blocked Fire Engine Access to the town's main commercial area, And blocked fire engine access to the road bridge over the river, oh, And blocked fire engine access to the local government buildings and houses on the opposite side of the commercial area on the Other axis too! (the fire engines had to go around the block to miss the round about coming out of the fire station, then drive a quarter of the town's length, then get on the motor way, drive about half the town's length (crossing the river), get off the motor way, then come Back just to get to places on the opposite river bank)... This was Partially fixed by banking the road such that one roundabout was only half as far above the surface so the fire engine could drive Over it (the one blocking the bridge was not corrected when I last had reason to look, now many years ago, and a later development meant that, if willing to drive most of the length of town twice, the other bit would not have been cut off any more even without the fix). So, yeah, well designed roundabouts in the right place are great and really easy to deal with. Stupidly designed roundabouts or those put in the wrong place range from the annoying to the murderous. (The city I live in also has an opposing pair of one way roads cutting through it on each of the four sides of the city centre. Their traffic lights are synced up (have been for decades) such that on a trip down one of them you'll hit a red light once between getting on them and hitting the end (unless you're super lucky, then not at all)... They're functionally an enormous roundabout... And that's actually the point, because the pull a Lot of traffic out of the city centre (enough to cause problems for businesses there), because the roads there can't handle it (and the city centre Still gets choked up some times.) So, yeah... Pick the right tool for the right job and its great, force it into the wrong place and you break things.

There's a roundabout near my school that probably reduced idle time by 85-90%, easily. In the right situation, they're fantastic.

@@angolin9352 In my town, so many people died daily at a single intersection, they put a round-a-bout to keep the town from getting sued. It's much faster to go through the intersection, and after a year of it being installed, not a single person has died in the round-a-bout. I'd say they work pretty well.

Roundabouts are great until you encounter someone that doesn't know how to use it. Seriously like I just kept driving around in circles :)

magiman1988 3:01 areal footage of the 110 - 105 interchange. Maddening and aggravating from 5:30 - 11:00 AM & 2:00 - 7:00 PM Monday - Saturday. I advise you to avoid.

It's actually not a true roundabout, but rather a traffic circle because of the traffic lights on it (at least by the look of the stopping vehicles)

Hmm, I thought it was Jeff Bridges as Starman.

Nanu Nanu. Lol!

Dave Dee people use a yellow to advantage that means to start slowing down

More than half of Europe, but there are still places like France, Spain, Italy that don't do that and does the same as USA.

e

I LOVE your channel!

e

e

Have you ever heard of a traffic engineer being fired for out of sequence lights? It will never happen, the first thing traffic engineers learn is the excuses. The fool taxpayers are simply not spending enough money on traffic signals. Because really, who are the real fools? Those having more and more of their assets confiscated by the government to pay for more traffic engineers and light fixtures, or those collecting the funds with a built in excuse to justify no appreciable results?

@@mch2359 calm down bud, I said I approved this video, didn't say I approve the technicality in each and every aspect of traffic engineering explained in every other second of the video. Overall, his tone and explanation is correct, for layman viewers and learners. I'm sure professionals like you have lots to add into this topic and I would be glad to learn from you.

@@Admiral_Ali Sorry for the rant. Go to any Road Commission web site and get your fill of them complaining about being under funded. All the while they are wasting money. For example 2 fixtures can stop 4 lanes just fine, no need to replace perfectly functional signals with one for each lane.

lol, unexpected triggering.

Mark H. Depending on design standards for electrical items (how many items allowed on pole, ways to mount certain items) and any new developments (planned widening, planned system modifications/upgrades, or additional traffic for anticipated growth) there may be a need to replace poles. That however is within purview of electrical engineers. Unfortunately some work in the schematic world, not fully realizing that what they plan have consequences (are they "break away" i.e. designed to be break off under certain assumed circumstances; do I need to add protection if they must be located within "clear recovery zone") The latest hot topics are "vision zero" where stakeholders work toward zero roadway fatalities in varieties of way- engineering, education (i add engagement), and enforcement; and "Complete Streets"- life cycle of transportation planning, engineering and maintenance should consider usage by all modes (and all user ages) of transportation, depending on functional class of facilities. Listen to staff reports and ask questions at your local jurisdiction's planning meetings/public focus meetings. It may not be sexy but sure as heck easier to correct/change at 65% design than when you see it being done. But do ask as we- consultants or city employees- are supposed to explain to you, the taxpayers, so you can understand. Speaking from experience in US private and public sectors :)

At the beginning of the 20th century, they had a similar problem: Half the traffic was cars & the other half was slow-moving horses, so a lot of places had dedicated lanes for each.

It is technically possible, as autonomous vehicles are independant distributed systems. They can identify objects and humans themselves, without needing signals from that object (although in this case there can be errors)

not to mention a single failure from one of the vehicles and the accident will pile up for miles.

The boring tunnel basically. Just wish they would be smaller roads involved not just SF to LA. It would also create a company monopoly.

Autonomous would be cool, I could go anywhere in the country and sleep eat and be on my phone then the car has a software glitch and bam I'm dead because stupid car crashes into a wall it didn't detect on its sensors because of a software glitch or malfunction! So I say F Autonomous vehicles because AI could kill a majority of the population in one day in Autonomous driving vehicles.

In London (and probably other places), there are cameras which can detect if you do this (as well as other things such as make an illegal turn), and issue fines automatically.

Self-driving cars understand this rule. Most humans do not.

intentional box-blockers are a pet peeve for me as well.

Have you ever heard the tale of the Yellow Box Junction? I thought not, it's not a tale many UK drivers would tell you..

@@JaidenJimenez86 $300USD fine in my city

You raise your fist in frustration and they curse you. lol

We dont have the 4 way junction here as its pointless and slows traffic, I never understand why americans have these junctions, make no sense at all. What is the point in slowing all traffic down? Just do what we do and slow two of them down and let the other two free flow, makes much more sense.

I think the biggest think that helps with congestion in the UK is your network of buses and trains.

We used to have big number countdown in Macedonia before our government banned them and replaced it with the green light blinking three times before turning red.

Намерих Българина

ей този коментар и аз търсих 😀

Larry John if the city doesn’t provide adequate warning for motorists to stop thats the city’s fault not motorist’s fault.

@Wxlfman_773 Chicago is fucked.

Da machine!

Literally just idling in a left turn lane in Chicago, lightly layed off the brakes and moved forward a couple inches and a red light camera went off. Like seriously wtf

Those cameras have been banned in many places.

Netherlands?

@@kleinereisbar591 Correct, bicycles are quite useful over here with our fairly flat terrain and good road infrastructure for it. It may take me longer to get to the city compared to a car or bus, but while doing my shopping there I can get to the right place in the city much faster. And I've got two large bags at the back of my bicycle and a backpack to fill with stuff instead of having to carry it. Works out great for all but the largest objects that really need a car/trailer.

@@extrastuff9463 i'm from Cologne and my mom loves to travel to your country to go on a bicycle trip 😂

@@kleinereisbar591 Sometimes I dream of moving to a place where cycling is a common mode of transportation. Cycling in Nashville Tennessee is suicide. Even if there are bike lanes, there are driveways and side streets every 10 meters, debris/potholes galore, and most roads don't have any space for bikes in the first place.

I find it so weird that the USA forbids countdown displays for vehicular traffic signals, even if it uses them for pedestrian signals.

I don't know if there's a lot of formal writing on the subject, but the phenomenon of small urban municipalities aggressively building traffic out of their thoroughfares and creating a tragedy of the commons is an all too real fight I see in metro Detroit. It's all well and good for a city or two (each only a few square miles in footprint) to riddle their roads with bike lanes, bus lanes, 15mph speed limits and pedestrian yields every few hundred feet but the entire metro area is at risk of gridlock cascades when big arteries like Woodward get cut down to 10% of their throughput because Ferndale wants peds to be able to cross at 5:15pm unencumbered

@@ivandiaz5791 nice bad-faith argument? it certainly makes sense in city centers but the particular road I'm talking about alternates from 6 to 8 lanes, 45 and 50mph. it's a major trunkline for commuter traffic and more so for events (four sports/concert venues at its terminus) yet one town that controls about 3/4 mile has slowed traffic down to 30 and placed down pedestrian yields. forget the pragmatic traffic flow issues, it's straight up dangerous at off-peak hours when drivers aren't watching closely enough

This is taught either in transportation engineering (especially at a graduate level) or in transportation planning. Source: am graduate civil engineering student specializing in transportation.

I remember seeing a video about a Chinese intersection having just 0.9 second of green light

You can complain. If you can figure out to who.

@@stephenpowstinger733 , it does not do any good in my city. Every traffic light is on a very short phase here. When I stated it was a problem, I had to limit the problem to ONE intersection. Maybe in the next 120 years or so I can get back to them about the rest of the traffic lights.

I feel your annoyance, I try and avoid certain roads for the reason of the lights being retarded

Malaysia and Korea too

could be showing india where traffic lasts for days and people take breaks driving and leave their cars to go get food, and you can have food delivered to your car in traffic

That traffic isn't too bad. It's actually considered "Flowing traffic" by Bangkok standard.

It’s Ratchaprasong intersection (Central World on the right-hand side); during non-peak traffic time to be sure.

They even differ a lot in Europe themselves. We have some turboroundabutes here in the Netherlands for handling more volume (asymmetrical roundabouts). That are roundabouts with more lanes, but you shouldn't be able to change lanes on the roundabout it self to prevent accidents and increase flow. This explains is better: from the Technical University of Delft: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iMYib3IR43I.html

In Wisconsin there are many roundabouts, and many more to be made.

Roundabouts are becoming more prevalent in Montana, and you would not believe uproar. The number of people who have been issued licenses, but can't comprehend a yield sign is astounding.

As Americans we have been taught that we all individually OWN the road and this is antithetical to the concept of yielding which is critical to the safe operation of a roundabout. Our car culture has promoted competitive and adversarial driving habits and combined with a subconscious ignorance of what YIELD means that enough American drivers will simply bully their way through a roundabout endangering everyone around them.

Maybe you were taught that you own the road, but I wasn't.

The Red+Amber phase is common across Europe and some other parts of the world, but unheard of in North America.

There's also blinking green for car traffic in some of the european countries, because, it's actually forbidden to jump on yellow, unless you're so close to the intersection that braking is impossible. Another difference in euro is that often left-turns doesn't have separate phases, it's just they need to yield to oncoming traffic (both cars and pedestrians).

Interesting idea

@@tjur The left-turn can be protected, it just depends on the size of the road and the amount of trafic it's likely to experience. If there are two lanes going in either direction it often is, or if it's a busier intersection extra lanes are added to accomodate a protected left-turn.

I think this is because America has far fewer manual transmissions. We don't need to prep the car in anyway to go and accelerate quickly.

Bicycles... I can get most anywhere in the downtown area in less time than it would take me to drive there.