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UK until you learn faster what brings an argument to an emergency sooner how do you get the right man in the right job the answer is computers only computers can cope with the diversity of municipal demands and to help you understand some of the uses of computers we bring you the series titled computers in modern city government Your host of these programs is the deputy city administrator Dr as savages and today's topic deals with green life for harried motorists ought to suffer as one of the great and internationally known city planners has commented that in the period between one thousand ten and one thousand nine hundred sixty nine which is a period of tremendous progress and in transportation technology with airplanes jet planes fast trains automobiles etc that this great period of transportation advances has resulted in doubling the time that it takes to go across town in New York City from an average speed of twelve miles an hour back in one nine hundred ten to an estimated six miles an hour in one thousand nine hundred sixty nine any of us who has ever driven in New York City has felt the frustrations and the delays involved in moving automobile traffic through the streets of the city but the city government today embarked upon a major program to improve the flow of traffic and three improve the speed of traffic through some of the parts of the city our guest with us today is Mr events and Hod not chief of the Bureau of signals and communications in the department of traffic of our Transportation Administration. The city has embarked upon a major program as I say for improving flow of traffic by using computers to control the traffic signals Vince wanted to explain to us what does computer control of traffic signals mean what is it all about well by the use of computer control we are attempting to give the motors the green light. With red lights he stops on this is very distasteful to all of us with green light traffic proceed an orderly fashion and we hope to improve the average trial and travel time that you just described and have this travel time to be something within reason how exactly does this work how do computer what does it mean when we talk about computer controlled traffic signals could you describe just generally how does this work out of the sloppy what how does a computer do something about the traffic signals the computer works really under the direction of the traffic engineer the computer is in and the object really and the skill and the resources of the traffic department and the engineering staff is put in the computer in the form of tables and information and by the use of sensors the computer is able to monitor traffic conditions and select proper programs that have been selected by the traffic engineer and then you talk about detectors in other words one way or the other you're saying that the computer is measuring traffic conditions in various parts of the city can you go into little more detail on precisely how does it measure what kind of detectors are there and what do the detectors detect Yes they detectors or sensors are are the instruments that are placed on mast arms over the traveled road and by means of ultrasonic beams the their goals of brake these beams and such are counted so that we are able to count to their goals and to actually measure the speeds OK So in other words there's a detector that's hanging out over a roadway. And it's bouncing ultrasonic signals down and it's actually counting cars and the speed of the cars passing underneath that signal. Under that detector and then this information about traffic counts goes into some sense a computer in your Long Island City traffic department headquarters is that right yes all of this information is then collected by the computer and is of value weighted and compared to the tables or the timing patterns that should be selected to compensate for any congestion or the speed in the certain area would decrease the timing changes could be made automatically by the computer and transmitted to the local intersection controller by telephone lines so there's kind of an immediate kind of thing in other words you have a T.V. you have a whole lot of these sensors in a certain area of the city and the information feeds in automatically in continuously to a computer which scans and examines this information at high speeds and then it decides that a different change in traffic signal patterns is necessary and then the computer kind of with Moments later sends back signals to the local traffic lights is that the way it works that's correct and then the fact we really form a close loop because as changes are made then these changes are sensed by the detectors or sensors over the roadway and then this information is again transmitted to the computer and evaluated to determine if this is the correct solution because in the mean time and in the few minutes and they have a lapse between the personality has changes may have occurred so that we therefore have a system that's responsive to changes over small increments of time OK let me understand precisely what it is that happens I can understand the idea of a computer collecting this information which comes automatically about traffic flows throughout the city and then the computer sends out signals to change the traffic light pattern exactly how does it change it what are the critical. The fact is that a computer can change on that street light that's down at the corner by my house what does a computer do to that traffic light we have three main things that the computer can and can do to influence the flow of traffic the first one we call offs and this changes the the relationship of the first signal to the second signal and such in other words down the street offset refers to the the time lapse between a light changes on this corner in the light changed in the next corner down the street in a light changing of the next corner down the street after that and that's very true because the this one factor has to change as the speed of the vehicle would change and this be the vehicle changes under normal driving additions as the traffic conditions change OK so this offset between intersections I can see is one of the critical variables that the computer can change in order to to improve the traffic flow one of the other controls that the computer can can affect well as the volume of traffic on the street expands and it is necessary that the green time expand also so their poor we change the term known as cycle lanes to have a longer green period. Each complete traffic cycle from the beginning of green to green clearances and to the red where the main street and consequently the green from the side street in other words. Make sense as the traffic builds up on one artery for instance the computer sense of the traffic is let's say it may be relatively heavier on the artery than it is on the core on the cross streets and therefore starts giving more green to the main artery and less going to the side street that I was that's correct because it's as traffic increases and denser they it is human for the driver to slow down because of the now he has trucks or other vehicles on each side of them and he's a little more cautious on more care when he's driving and he may be in the abs. Traffic where he may drive faster so therefore we have to change the signal timing so that when he reaches the intersection with the light is green and that hasn't been brewing for some time and he may not be able to get through on the green OK And you mentioned offset and you mentioned the cycle length what is the third control that the computer has over the trip the local traffic light on the corner and the third is central prime A tour is the split or the allocation of the green time between the main street and the side street or they could be to Main Street that had the juncture. OK. Where what is the back has anybody else ever tried this idea of using computers to control local traffic lights directly yes this has been tried very successfully. In the past ten years some rather. Primitive type of computers have been used and recently with the development of the digital computer and more powerful tool was now been given to the traffic engineer for the use in the control of traffic there to two small resources in this country that are presently are using them with varying degrees of success and they have been very successful within this area. Our traffic department under Commissioner Kerik gives off has been very aggressive in moving ahead rapidly and using this new technology this new tool that's been given to the traffic engineer what exactly have you done in New York City and where have you done it or Presently we are installing a digital computer in the borough of Queens this computer was planned and purchased last year and we are in the present in the process of completing completing the installation OK what part of how many intersections or how many traffic signals are going to be controlled by. Why this computer and exactly where in Queens is this going to work we anticipate will control a total of five hundred intersections principally on the east west arterials in northern Queens and the arterials involved or Northern Boulevard Roseville Avenue the Long Island Expressway service roads Union turnpike Hillside Avenue Queens Boulevard or Jamaica Avenue and metropolitan. I.C. what. So principal a this this initial computer work is going to be confined to controlling about five hundred into sections on these east west arteries that you mentioned in Queens. One thought that occurs to me is what happens if the if the computer fails at knock out all five hundred intersections in the light to there of the computers controlling them what what kind of safety in backup is there and that's that's a factor that we have given great consideration to because we have to realize that the computer regardless of how glamorous or powerful and they perform is subject to failure at times if this should occur the. Local intersection controllers then are dropped from control by the computer and are able to continue with the timing of the lights under their individual electrical motors icing what the what exactly do you hope to obtain while the first place what is the what was the what is the overall cost of this program to upgrade and improve the traffic signals of the city how would you up what would you say is some kind of cost factor there in the in the city of New York and all boroughs we have nine thousand signalized intersections. All nine thousand of these intersections are being modernized that is the. Old Two Section signals are being replaced by three sections signals what you mean by three section this is the red yellow and the green OK signal in many areas you just are aware of the two color of the red in the green so the new federal and state standards require that the. Noose type of signals be install that's a big installed on overhead mast arm so they will extend out over the street to be visible to the driver as good I've always had the problem when I'm driving along a crowded street trying to pick out the traffic light that's sitting on the corner by the curb and trying to. Five that against the background of various advertising signs and neon lights so look at the driver I personally grateful at seeing these overhead traffic lights hanging down over the roadway where I can see them. This is this also a line the gratification of the driver to find this increases the safety of our street Sure and it reduces pedestrian accidents and also reduces access between vehicles because they're more visible and therefore the driver doesn't have to look for them or assume that their signal does not exist. So what is the you mention the so much overall modernization program which includes. Putting an overhead light switch into up to three light lights. What would you guess is the overall cost of this program over a period of years with the inclusion of complete computer control to these signalized intersections after they have been modernized I would estimate that the program will cost approximately seventy to seventy five million dollars What kind of impact with respect to the computer alone and I recognize that the computer costs are a small part of that seventy five million dollars. What is the what kind of improvements to expect to get what are you really looking for what do you expect that the compute what kind of difference do you expect the computer will make what will it do for the driver we are expecting that the computer will provide a more rapid flow of traffic which will reduce the time the driver requires to go from home to work from home to shopping or from home to the theater in the evening and it will reduce the number of stops as a driver next this has a lot of facial attacks and that it also reduces the actual exposure and we find that the number of accidents go down as the number of stops decrease. Does that mean that the Northern Boulevard in Queens Boulevard and rolls will die when you're going to come out raceways going east west and I know when I when I said that we would increase the travel speed I was referring again to the speed that you mentioned in your opening remarks that are present in every speech and they didn't neighborhood six miles per hour we do not expect to go beyond the legal speed limits or stablished on the streets but we'd be very happy if we could approach them that's this measure of effectiveness is very very important when we're spending a considerable amount of money to improve our traffic flow and our improve our signals. It is important to measure carefully what kind of improvements we're getting and you indicated that the areas where you expect improvements are. Increases in the average speed of traveling along these arteries reduction the number of stops which hopefully will even turn to reduction in the number of of accidents what the what are you doing to measure these kinds of things you can do these things are very hard to measure Ordinarily I know what kind of program do you have on the way for carefully measuring the improvements that you're getting the before and after you've taken the form after measures a lot yes this is one of the tools the traffic engineer uses to allow you a to fact on this of this program and we my counsel both manually and by machines in the change you readily recognize they have a single tube stretching across a roadway counts of the angles we have counters. People that are watching the intersections and counting the vehicles as they go by counting the number of pedestrians that make the crossings and the difficulties they may have or the average crossing time. The possibility that a school makes us and school cars may not be present time so we this has to be taken into account so any in the condition that would restore. The flow of traffic or that would require any correction by the methods we have that our controls are taking consideration. I think let me let me turn to a problem that's always something that has always bugged me as a driver when my wife and I are driving home after visiting some friends somewhere it's early in the morning one of two o'clock in the morning we arrive at an intersection there is another car in sight nothing is moving and there's a red light facing me and I sit there for one minute or for two minutes waiting for that red light to turn green is this computer a project of yours likely to make a change in that oh yes this this is another method by which we may increase the efficiency because we like to think that we're increasing the overall of patients in not just doing the morning peak hours or the evening peak hours during the time that you're driving to work or that you're going home so by the reduction in the cycle length that we spoke a lot earlier that we're able to make the waiting time for the motorists on the side street less in the absence of traffic so therefore these intolerable waits are no longer be necessary and you are not the mulling over the possibility that the signal may be defective. That that's exactly after about twenty five or thirty seconds I start figuring that the flight really isn't working today and the fates are against me actually you just brought up a very important. Almost philosophical point that I'd like to amplify and point out even in greater detail people usually think of computers as in some sense read to dehumanize the the situation making things too automatic and too much under the control of machines this example is one that I think is a very good one which suggests that in a sense we're using computers to make the city more human in other words when I went to one of the drivers sitting there in the middle of the night with the red lights. Tearing at him right now it works absolutely inflexibly that light that cycle time has been prearranged since the one nine hundred thirty perhaps and up and that light says that I can't move and what the computer is doing is in a sense a kind of personalizing that street for me and recognizing that there's a car waiting here and not on the other side there's no traffic going the other direction and in a sense the computer will be giving me more personal service will recognize my existence that's so I admit that's kind of a philosophical point I think that's an example of where with computers we can we can individualize certain kinds of things and in this case you talk about individual izing to a certain extent the the the traffic patterns I can understand how. We our or our computer based traffic control system. Will be working in Queens working emphasising improving the traffic flow on these major east west arteries What are your future expansion plans for the I suppose that all goes well and as you start your system goes into operation and starts working and as you start collecting your data and analyzing it and you start seeing that in fact you are getting improved traffic speeds reduced stops reduced accidents what so what kind of expansion do you envision for this this idea well our overall plans would envision the the expansion and to see approximately seven thousand signalized intersections seven thousand out of you so there are nine thousand total in the city and you expect that in time if all goes well seven thousand would be accommodated by such systems yes these would be the intersections of who lend themselves to interconnection that they are close enough together to coordination is required so we would then expand into Brooklyn Bronx and Manhattan so that we would be able to have a close knit system of coordinates signals. Speaking of. About Manhattan I remember the late commission of Barnes made a comment once that what we really should do in Manhattan is make all the streets westbound and then let New Jersey worry about the traffic problem. That that was an excellent suggestion and it sounds like a mission farce philosophy and what the what kind of improvements can you envision in Manhattan which is such a dense to on like the arteries in Queens where the traffic patterns that we're concerned about here are these predominately east west patterns in Manhattan we've got this tight rectangular grid of streets each one seems to be choked what what kind of improvements might you envision your your computerized traffic control system of doing to that what we feel that there are many improvements that we can make within the grid system of Manhattan but I cannot say that this is the answer to our traffic problems the coordination of the signals and that happen in order to tune up the timing in the grid system the flexibility we have in the various hours of the day the flexibility to change patterns as in these arises the continuous monitoring of traffic conditions by our sensors overhead and the turning the volume of traffic in the average speed will assist us in the LNG this. Lets the Refer back to some of these other. Cities that have that have had some experience with the system much like the one that you're installing here in New York can you cite any specific figures on what kinds of improvements have been obtained in these other cities yes what all those cities want to LEO Well mentioned before well I'd like to say that to go we go go back a number of years that one of the earlier forms of computerized traffic control systems was installed in the city of Baltimore the city commissioner Barnes distinguished himself before he came to the city of New York and even to pray. Sometime this has a lot of the world's largest electronic controller systems this was installed some years ago since the band of digital control computers that has given us more flexibility the cities of San Jose California. And Wichita Falls Texas Toronto Canada. London England Glasgow Scotland and numerous other cities and on the continent have installed the digital computers and have been very successful the success can be measured by the percent of the patients the increase. Anywhere from eight to twenty percent and this is we feel only the beginning let's say eight to twenty percent is this kind of reduction in the in the in in stops or when you said official see what do you mean by that this would be the overall decrease in travel time the reduction in stops and the the. This major patient See also decreases the number of actual souls or we don't really look at this as a measure of the patients we would look at this as an increased pedestrian safety or driver safety. Over the much longer run what kind of. Improvements are needed you talk about five ten twenty percent improvements What are some of the other aspects looking very broadly now the whole of the hill a transportation system in the city what are some of the other things that in your opinion the have to be coordinated with improved traffic signal programs in order to improve the the traffic situation in the city I think obviously the improvement in mass transportation is the key to the whole situation. In the meantime while we're waiting for this improvement we're temping to do everything we can to operate the present street system in a more efficient manner. One of the encouraging things to me is that the. Here in the city you commission a carriage as off. Do have this view that mass transit isn't in fact is the long term key to the solution far too often in too many places and too many cities and with too many authorities the the feeling is that the private automobile is king and should be king and and traffic commissioners sometimes don't take enough recognition of the of the role of mass transit and one thing that is pleasing about this is what's happening here well Vince This has been very very helpful we've been hearing about how the city of New York has begun to use modern computer technology in order to improve the flow of traffic and to provide more green lights for the harried motorist our guest today has been Mr events and hard not chief of the Bureau of signals and communications of our department of traffic thank you very much Vince. And if you talk to some of those who've been listening to another broadcast of computers and modern city government. Next week's topic is computer brains volunteer and if you have any questions about today's program or wish to receive a free booklet titled introducing the computer all you need do is write to computers W N Y C in New York one hundred zero seven and join us again same time next week for another look at computers in modern city government.