Skip to main content

Canadian police department implements traffic signal priority

The District of Saanich’s Police Department in British Columbia, Canada, has awarded Global Traffic Technologies (GTT) a contract for the implementation of its latest-generation GPS-enabled Opticom pre-emption solution, which works alongside intersection controllers to help ensure emergency vehicles can move through intersections rapidly and safely. Saanich Fire Department is already a user of the Opticom system. The system includes a GPS component for location, direction, speed and ETA, as well as wirel
November 15, 2016 Read time: 1 min
The District of Saanich’s Police Department in British Columbia, Canada, has awarded 542 Global Traffic Technologies (GTT) a contract for the implementation of its latest-generation GPS-enabled Opticom pre-emption solution, which works alongside intersection controllers to help ensure emergency vehicles can move through intersections rapidly and safely. Saanich Fire Department is already a user of the Opticom system.

The system includes a GPS component for location, direction, speed and ETA, as well as wireless radio communications between authorised emergency vehicles and the intersections they approach. When an emergency vehicle needs to navigate an intersection quickly and safely, a request is sent to the intersection’s controller ahead of its arrival, turning the light green and clearing a path to enable the vehicle’s safe passage.

Related Content

  • February 6, 2012
    Progressing work zone safety systems
    David Crawford investigates progress in a key safety area - work zones
  • January 26, 2012
    Bringing V2I and V2V communications to workzone safety
    Imran Hayee of the University of Minnesota Duluth's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering talks about efforts to bring V2I and V2V communications into work zones. With USDOT backing and under the auspices of the ITS Joint Program Office Connected Vehicle Research (formerly IntelliDrive) research programme, M. Imran Hayee of the University of Minnesota Duluth's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering along with team of his students, have been conducting research into the application of
  • March 2, 2021
    DSRC? ‘It’s become a faith-based thing’
    The US FCC’s decision on 5.9GHz led to Applied Information offering DSRC buybacks to DoTs. Bryan Mulligan tells Adam Hill that we now just need to get on and roll out CV technology...
  • January 23, 2012
    Tunnel simulators vital for real world tunnel management
    Guillaume Ponsar, tunnel safety engineer with Egis Road Operation, writes about the advantages to be gained from the use of tunnel simulators. Major tunnel disasters over the last decade and more have shown how swiftly and badly a simple crash or fire may evolve should the wrong actions be taken by control room operators or traffic managers. Global safety issues and the reactions of operations staff have now become the principal concerns for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) service providers. As a result, n