Skip to main content

Introduction to traffic signals

A new book by Alastair Gollop, senior ITS consultant at Mott McDonald, Traffic Signals, offers a comprehensive guide to traffic signals from first principles and design issues to equipment and testing, commissioning and assessments. In addition, there are sections covering the history and future of signals. Although based on equipment and operating systems utilised in the UK, the principles covered are relevant to users worldwide. Aimed at anyone interested by traffic signals, Gollop says the book assume
March 10, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
A new book by Alastair Gollop, senior ITS consultant at Mott McDonald, Traffic Signals, offers a comprehensive guide to traffic signals from first principles and design issues to equipment and testing, commissioning and assessments. In addition, there are sections covering the history and future of signals. Although based on equipment and operating systems utilised in the UK, the principles covered are relevant to users worldwide.

Aimed at anyone interested by traffic signals, Gollop says the book assumes no prior knowledge, but builds to a complete introduction to the subject. It is primarily aimed at traffic signal practitioners of all levels, graduate engineers seeking an introduction to the field and members of other engineering specialism's and client groups wishing to further their understanding of the subject.

Traffic Signals looks at the way in which modern signals operate and the equipment commonly used in current traffic control systems in the UK. It also looks at how signalised junctions and crossings are designed, explaining the fundamental design principles, and how these are used by modern software modelling tools to predict traffic operation.
 
Included within the book is a set of standard detail drawings which are commonly used when specifying and designing projects.
UTC

Related Content

  • March 15, 2012
    Traffic signals turn red to stop speeding drivers
    David Crawford is encouraged by the spread of 'soft' speed policing 
  • November 11, 2015
    CRASH Predicts ‘unpredictable’ in traffic incidents
    Road crashes are not as random as they may appear and analysing data can reveal patterns that can help various authorities target their resources more accurately. David Crawford reports. Figures from the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) show that in 2013 there were 32,719 people killed on American roads and 2.31 million injured. While these form part of an overall 25% drop over the decade from 2004, US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx continues to stress that reaching the procl
  • January 31, 2012
    Do we need a new approach to ITS and traffic management?
    In an article which has implications for the European Electronic Toll Service, ASECAP's Kallistratos Dionelis asks whether the approach we currently take to major ITS system implementations is always the best or healthiest. I was asked recently to write a paper on the technology-oriented future of transport. To paraphrase, I started with: "The goal of European policy-makers is to establish a transport system which meets society's economic, social and environmental needs, satisfying in parallel a rising dema
  • February 1, 2012
    Intersection management, cooperative infrastructures - what next?
    What do recent vehicle recalls mean for future cooperative infrastructures? Anthony Smith takes a look. As ITS industry stakeholders converge on Amsterdam for the 2010 Cooperative Mobility Showcase, an unprecedentedly wide range of technologies will be on display demonstrating what might be achievable in the future from innovations based on Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications.