Road And Pedestrian Safety At Traffic Junctions Where Discretionary Right Turns Are Replaced With Red Amber Green Signals
With the implementation of the Red Amber Green (RAG) arrows at traffic junctions, including some in Bukit Batok, the feedback that I received is that road safety has improved. However, for some road users, they felt that they are waiting for a longer period of time at the junctions as compared to before. I therefore filed 2 Parliamentary Questions. In the 1st question, I asked the Minister for Transport how has road safety improved through the implementation of the RAG arrows. In the 2nd question, I sought an update on LTA’s work to introduce the next generation of smart traffic light control system leveraging on artificial intelligence to deal with real-time traffic situations. In this way, the time waiting arising from the implementation of the RAG arrows, can be possibly reduced.
Mr Murali Pillai asked the Minister for Transport how has the replacement of discretionary right turns with Red Amber Green (RAG) signals improved road and pedestrian safety at the respective traffic junctions where these new signals have been deployed.
Mr S Iswaran: Discretionary right turns help to optimise traffic flow as motorists are able to execute the turn when there is no conflicting pedestrian or vehicular traffic. This is particularly useful at junctions with low traffic. However, for junctions where there is a higher risk of accidents, the Land Transport Authority has been progressively introducing Red Amber Green (RAG) signals. Such junctions that have been installed with RAG signals have seen a decrease of about 40% in accidents involving right turns.
Besides RAG signals, LTA also enhances junction safety through other initiatives, such as appropriate road markings, lighted road studs, integrated pedestrian countdown timers and signs.
UPDATE ON AI-BACKED SMART TRAFFIC LIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM FOR PUBLIC ROADS
Mr Murali Pillai asked the Minister for Transport whether the Ministry can provide an update on LTA’s Cooperative and Unified Smart Traffic System (CRUISE) project involving the development of the next generation of a smart traffic light control system leveraging on artificial intelligence to deal with real-time traffic situations.
Mr S Iswaran: Our current traffic light system is an adaptive system which can adjust traffic light timings based on traffic flow.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has been working with A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) on the CoopeRative and UnIfied Smart Traffic SystEm (CRUISE) project. The project will trial the use of artificial intelligence and multi-sensor data integration across multiple traffic junctions, to achieve further efficiency in road network operations. If successful, this could form the basis of our next generation, smart traffic light control system.
With laboratory simulation and controlled testing completed in 2020, LTA is now conducting trials along Corporation Road and Boon Lay Way to gather data. These trials had been planned to commence in end 2020, but the timelines were pushed back to May 2021 due to the impact of COVID-19.
The project is still in its early research and development phase. The algorithms would have to be refined using collected data, before progressing to further controlled testing and expanded on-site trials. The project would also need to clear robust and rigorous testing to ensure safety and performance, before large scale implementation can be considered.
