"Turn Off Traffic Lights At Night" - would it save energy?

[dan_aka_jack]

I've just been asked to sign this petition to lobby the government to turn off traffic lights at night, the idea being that this would reduce the number of times that cars would have to decelerate and then accelerate on empty roads.  Here's the blurb from the petition:

    http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/TOTLAN/

    We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to investigate
    the potential savings of money, electricity, vehicle fuel and
    CO2 emissions that would result from turning off traffic lights
    at night.

    TOTLAN - Turn Off Traffic Lights At Night -  In many parts of
    the world traffic lights are turned off at night leaving only a
    single flashing warning light where necessary. All over Britain
    thousands of traffic lights are working 24 hours a day even
    when there are no vehicles on the roads they control. This
    means not only a considerable waste of electricity but also
    that every night of the year, hundreds of thousands of vehicles
    on virtually empty roads, are decelerating, parking with their
    engines running, and then accelerating again, thus increasing
    their CO2 emissions without any obvious benefit. In view of the
    fact that turning off traffic lights at night is known to work
    without causing an unacceptably high number of accidents in
    other parts of the world, we would like the Prime Minister to
    investigate taking a similar course of action in this country.

I imagine that this would cause carnage in busy cities.  But would it work elsewhere?  My hunch is that it would produce absolutely minuscule fuel savings for the vehicles (not least because sensible drivers would still break as they approach the disabled traffic lights) and even smaller electricity savings for turning off the traffic lights.  I'm also very concerned about the phrase "without causing an unacceptably high number of accidents".  Who gets to choose what qualifies as an "acceptable" number of accidents?!?

I'd rather the government didn't spend time and money looking into a scheme like this; I'd rather they spent that time and money investing in schemes that are guaranteed to work (smart grids, off-shore wind etc etc etc).

[martin]

I think you're wrong........there was recently an article which showed that some far-sighted German towns had removed all "traffic junk" - all the forest of poles, lights, segregation of traffic and pedestrians, and basically "left them to it" - the results were remarkable  - accident rates fell through the floor, the towns were quicker to drive through, because they gave people back the responsibility to be safe - with unsegregated pedestrians about, they were hyper-careful, and the accident rates dropped accordingly!
Here's the original article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/19/transport.transport
small excerpt
""They think they are reducing congestion with parking restrictions, lanes, roundabouts and gyratories, but cancel any such benefit by making journeys twice as long as they need be with one-way streets and traffic lights. The latter waste road space, increase travel time and burn millions of tonnes of unnecessary carbon.
Traffic management must be the most uneconomic, anti-human and carbon-guzzling regulation on earth. Pedestrians are corralled and confined by fences. Streets are polluted by forests of signs, preventing drivers from their prime task of watching and showing consideration to other road users. We put up with this nonsense in the naive belief that it must be doing us good. It is not.
Vanderbilt is a follower of the "shared space movement" pioneered by the Dutch engineer, Monderman, whose work is now near standard across mainland Europe. There are 4,000 "naked street" schemes in Germany alone, where lights and restrictions are minimal and pedestrians, cyclists and cars tolerate each other at all but the most difficult crossings.
Rather than accelerating and braking down a regulated street, cars tend to move at under 20mph, informally policed by pavement design and the uncertainty of sharing space with pedestrians and cyclists. That eyes are the best traffic policemen was a Monderman maxim. In shared space, accidents fall and journey times actually improve, often by extraordinary amounts"

[NickW]

Hmmmmm. That was in Germany - would it work with our hoards of uninsured chavs in rusty Vauxhall Novas with bean cans for exhausts?

[dan_aka_jack]

"There are 4,000 "naked street" schemes in Germany alone, where lights and restrictions are minimal and pedestrians, cyclists and cars tolerate each other at all but the most difficult crossings."

Sounds a lot like the roads in India (the most dangerous roads in the world).

If I'm to have any faith at all in this "shared space" concept then someone needs to explain why it works in Germany but produces lethal roads in places like India.  (I suspect it has a lot to do with the difference between the "designed capacity" and the actual number of vehicles using the road; India's roads tend to be filled way beyond capacity)

[NickW]

"There are 4,000 "naked street" schemes in Germany alone, where lights and restrictions are minimal and pedestrians, cyclists and cars tolerate each other at all but the most difficult crossings."

Sounds a lot like the roads in India (the most dangerous roads in the world).

If I'm to have any faith at all in this "shared space" concept then someone needs to explain why it works in Germany but produces lethal roads in places like India.   (I suspect it has a lot to do with the difference between the "designed capacity" and the actual number of vehicles using the road; India's roads tend to be filled way beyond capacity)

One explaination - an unshakeable belief in reincarnation

[KenB]

Guys,

It would be better to replace all incandescent traffic lights with LED units, and then achieve your savings from turning off motorway lighting a night.

Thousands of kWh must be used lighting our motorways at night - ban Portuguese truckers at night and save the country a fortune.


Ken

[marktime]

I think the idea has merit if applied sensibly  . In parts of Europe traffic lights are (or were) switched to flashing amber at night and should be treated as a 'give way' sign. Simply to get over that 'feeling daft' sensation you get when stopped at a red light when there is not another single soul on the road (I know this feeling well having spent over 20 years 'on call' in the computer industry).

The 'naked streets' idea is also pretty good, I thought it was used in Holland or Scandinavian countries, getting road users to 'look' at each other could really make a difference but I'm not sure it would catch on here!!

MT

[Justme]

If I'm to have any faith at all in this "shared space" concept then someone needs to explain why it works in Germany but produces lethal roads in places like India. 

That can be explained by their much lower value of "human life" (their own & that of others)



Justme

[Ivan]

When I worked in Cardiff, occasionally a big powercut would take out traffic lights in the centre of the city. On the two or three occasions that I witnessed this, traffic flowed a lot better, and because no-one had priority over the dead traffic lights, cars were extremely cautious, and dare I say, courteous.

[dan_aka_jack]

When I worked in Cardiff, occasionally a big powercut would take out traffic lights in the centre of the city. On the two or three occasions that I witnessed this, traffic flowed a lot better, and because no-one had priority over the dead traffic lights, cars were extremely cautious, and dare I say, courteous.

Would you estimate that the cars used less fuel when the traffic lights were off?

Here in South East London, the lights occasionally go down and I genuinely fear for my life; especially when I'm on my bike trying to cross 4 lanes of (aggressive) traffic.

[northern installer]

this is beginning to sound like the small country,not far from here,where they had the idea of changing to driving on the right hand side,but so as to make it easier,phasing in the legislation,cars this week,buses and trucks the week after

[Ivan]

Yes, I'd definitely say car drivers were using less fuel....but I wouldn't guarantee they would drive that way if it was the norm.

[wookey]

The saving electricity bit is largely irrelevant - there is a lot of spare electricity all night. It seems inefficient, but at least the way things currently work you might as well use the power available (until we have a _lot_ more pumped storage, or other storage).

Dan, I think you worry too much about traffic lights being turned off. IME traffic works just fine when lights are dead - often better than when they are on. Fuel efficiencies would not be changed much, but probably marginally improved. I've never had any trouble with the French 'flashing amber all night' scheme, and many times have wished it could be used here.

Comparison with other European countries, rather than India, is most relevant.