Initiative details
Vulnerable road users (VRUs), including pedestrians and cyclists face several significant road safety challenges, especially at the intersections and crosswalks. Poorly designed or marked crosswalks, inappropriate traffic light planning and lack of pedestrian priority measures contribute to higher risks. More particularly, many intersections do not give sufficient priority to pedestrian or cyclists. Short crossing times, lack of adequate pedestrian requests, lack of dedicated pedestrian phases, lack of information providing to the VRUs, and insufficient waiting areas at intersections increase the risk of accidents and put in jeopardy the safe crossing of the intersection. Examining the accidents in intersections has revealed that one of the situations with high accident risk is when a vehicle is performing a right turn at the intersection while a cyclist or pedestrian is crossing the road straight and is at the blind spot of the driver.
Furthermore, the approaching and crossing of an intersection by an emergency vehicle using only the alarm is a critical safety situation for different groups of road users. Firstly, emergency vehicles are facing critical and dangerous situations while getting to the emergency scene time, since drivers do not react immediately to make space and in front of red traffic lights, many drivers wait for "green" instead of carefully crossing the stop line and making room for it. In addition, the vulnerable road users could also be exposed to danger in this scenario. For example, a pedestrian may not be paying attention and hear the alarm too late or it could be a hearing impaired person.
Furthermore, the approaching and crossing of an intersection by an emergency vehicle using only the alarm is a critical safety situation for different groups of road users. Firstly, emergency vehicles are facing critical and dangerous situations while getting to the emergency scene time, since drivers do not react immediately to make space and in front of red traffic lights, many drivers wait for "green" instead of carefully crossing the stop line and making room for it. In addition, the vulnerable road users could also be exposed to danger in this scenario. For example, a pedestrian may not be paying attention and hear the alarm too late or it could be a hearing impaired person.
Initiative date
to
Who was/is your target audience?
Policy makers
Car drivers
Emergency services
Cyclists
Pedestrians
Topic
Improve vehicles and infrastructure
Organisation details
Central Traffic Management Office of the Free State of Bavaria
Local Public authority
Germany
Bavaria
Contact name
Penny Deligianni
Telephone number
+49 89 558918211
stavroula.deligianni@lbd.bayern.de
Website link
Project activities
If you work together with external partners, list the most important partners and briefly describe their role.
This project was undertaken in cooperation with the Yunex Traffic Company. Yunex Traffic developed all the equipment, which was installed at the intersection and performed tests in their laboratories to evaluate their functionality. In addition, Yunex Traffic implemented and installed all the sensors (Cameras, Radars etc) and the systems (i.e. Intelligent bicycle Totem, Collision warning system). In close cooperation with the Central Traffic Management Office of the Free State of Bavaria tests were performed to ensure the correct performance of the sensors and systems and the necessary changes / improvements were made.
Please describe the project activities you carried/are carrying out and the time period over which these were implemented.
The „Traffic light of the Future“ project is a pilot project that was implemented in Essenbach, in Bavaria. It includes a signalised intersection at the Landshuter Straße/ Ahrainer Straße/Mirskofener Straße and a nearby predestrian crossing equipped also with traffic lights. The Free State of Bavaria has equipped these two traffic lights with various intelligent systems to test the safe and optimized management of traffic and handling of the different road users. The planning of the project started in June 2023, the implementation phase, which included the preparation of all the equipment and its installation at the intersections began in August 2023 and finished successfully in January 2024. Finally, tests and evaluation process are taking place since February and will be continued until August 2025.
The following systems were integrated into the existing signalised intersection and were tested with success:
• Emergency vehicle prioritisation
By equipping the traffic light system with a road-side unit (RSU) and setting up two emergency vehicles of the Essenbach volunteer fire department with on-board units (OBU) emergency vehicle prioritization was implemented and was tested in real operation. As the emergency vehicle approaches the intersection, it sends an automatic requests at the RSU and the traffic light is responding by giving priority (green light) to the emergency vehicle way and blocks (red light) all the other movements in the intersection, including the pedestrian / cyclist ones.
• Collision warning system
In order to increase safety at the junction for cyclists and pedestrians, an intelligent turning assistant was installed as a collision warning system. The activation of the warning system happens only when the installed artificial intelligent (AI) camera detects a conflict between approaching cyclists or pedestrians and motor vehicle traffic. The warning to the driver is given in the form of an orange blinking signal attached to the traffic light pole. In the future, the warning can also be shown on the display of appropriately equipped with OBU vehicles in the vicinity of the traffic lights.
• Green time request for pedestrians
A newly developed AI camera technology is also used to detect pedestrians as they approach the pedestrian crossing. The AI recognizes whether the pedestrians intend to cross the road and automatically requests a green light, which eliminates the need to press a button. Moreover, the camera is able to detect whether the pedestrian needs more time to cross the road and requests green time extension. This increases the safety of people with limited mobility.
• Green time prioritization for cyclists
Another application that was implemented was the green time priorisation for cyclists. A multi-lane radar, when being at a registration area detects the approaching cyclist. This sends a corresponding command to the signal controller to extend the green signal and so cyclists can cross the intersection without stopping. It is crucial that the cyclists are reliably distinguished from other objects, e.g. pedestrians.
• Intelligent bicycle Totem
An intelligent Totem for cyclists was installed on the pavement approximately 100 m east of the traffic lights. The Bicycle Totem is an indicator totem with an integrated LED display that gives cyclists a speed recommendation so they can cross the next intersection without stopping when the traffic light turns green. It uses a radar sensor to determine the speed of cyclists and uses the transmitted data (current signal phase and forecast) from the traffic light control box to calculate this speed recommendation.
The following systems were integrated into the existing signalised intersection and were tested with success:
• Emergency vehicle prioritisation
By equipping the traffic light system with a road-side unit (RSU) and setting up two emergency vehicles of the Essenbach volunteer fire department with on-board units (OBU) emergency vehicle prioritization was implemented and was tested in real operation. As the emergency vehicle approaches the intersection, it sends an automatic requests at the RSU and the traffic light is responding by giving priority (green light) to the emergency vehicle way and blocks (red light) all the other movements in the intersection, including the pedestrian / cyclist ones.
• Collision warning system
In order to increase safety at the junction for cyclists and pedestrians, an intelligent turning assistant was installed as a collision warning system. The activation of the warning system happens only when the installed artificial intelligent (AI) camera detects a conflict between approaching cyclists or pedestrians and motor vehicle traffic. The warning to the driver is given in the form of an orange blinking signal attached to the traffic light pole. In the future, the warning can also be shown on the display of appropriately equipped with OBU vehicles in the vicinity of the traffic lights.
• Green time request for pedestrians
A newly developed AI camera technology is also used to detect pedestrians as they approach the pedestrian crossing. The AI recognizes whether the pedestrians intend to cross the road and automatically requests a green light, which eliminates the need to press a button. Moreover, the camera is able to detect whether the pedestrian needs more time to cross the road and requests green time extension. This increases the safety of people with limited mobility.
• Green time prioritization for cyclists
Another application that was implemented was the green time priorisation for cyclists. A multi-lane radar, when being at a registration area detects the approaching cyclist. This sends a corresponding command to the signal controller to extend the green signal and so cyclists can cross the intersection without stopping. It is crucial that the cyclists are reliably distinguished from other objects, e.g. pedestrians.
• Intelligent bicycle Totem
An intelligent Totem for cyclists was installed on the pavement approximately 100 m east of the traffic lights. The Bicycle Totem is an indicator totem with an integrated LED display that gives cyclists a speed recommendation so they can cross the next intersection without stopping when the traffic light turns green. It uses a radar sensor to determine the speed of cyclists and uses the transmitted data (current signal phase and forecast) from the traffic light control box to calculate this speed recommendation.
In terms of implementation, what worked well and what challenges did you need to overcome?
The implementation lasted about six months. The installation of the Camera and Radar sensors was undertaken from the Yunex Traffic Company and it worked well and smoothly. The AI-controlled detection system needed some time (about a month) to be trained and to be able to recognise the road users with almost 100% success rate, which is crucial for all the safety-related technologies that were implemented. The installation of the RSU and the OBU worked also without any problems. On the other hand, it must be noted that one of the challenges we faced was the time-consuming procedure of obtaining all the necessary authorisations and to coordinate this procedure. From a technical point of view, there was just one challenge regarding the emergency vehicle priorisation. The initial solution that was tested, namely the short-range direct communication from the OBU to he RSU was not 100% succesfull because there are many buildings and the road is following a big curve exactly before the intersection. To solve this problem, Yunex Traffic and we implemented a hybrid system, which sends the priorisation request to a central system as well as to the RSU, ensuring the system´s functionality to a 100% rate.
Evaluation
Please summarise how you have evaluated the initiative’s impact (e.g. social media reach, survey, feedback forms, statistics).
As mentioned before, the evaluation of the technologies and the systems that were implemented in this project has begun just four months ago. Therefore, it is still an ongoing process. Primarily, all the sensors and equipment were tested extensively on site. Many different scenarios were investigated and analyzed and the functionality and effectiveness of the different technologies were verified. Some improvements and changes in the algorithms and the sensors had to be undertaken, to ensure the accuracy and correctness of the different systems. Furthermore, a numerous of test-drives by car and bicycle was performed, testing the emergency vehicle priorisation, the bicycle priorisation and the VRUs detection. It is also intended to collect data regarding the accident occurancy on the intersection after the implementation of all the new technologies, but of course, this requires more time. Last but not least, a survey has been designed and is planed to be released in the next months on a website to evaluate the initiative´s impact at the public and to obtain feedback.
What has been the effect of the activities?
The effects of the activities have already been obvious, although the evaluation phase started in February and will run until August 2025. Therefore, more concret results are expected to be obtained in the next months. The effects are listed below:
Increased safety for vulnerable road users
An important goal of the „Traffic light of the Future“ is to increase safety for pedestrians and cyclists. Yutraffic awareAI and the Collision warning system (turning assistant) ensure this. Thanks to the AI-controlled detection system awareAI, the green phase for pedestrians is automatically requested and extended if necessary. This increases safety when crossing the road, especially for larger groups, schoolchildren or school classes, wheelchair users or elderly people. In addition, the turning assistant warns turning vehicles when particularly vulnerable road users want to cross the junction. A potential danger can thus be recognized in advance and avoided preventively.
Safer intersection crossing for the fire department
Every minute counts for the fire department. The intersection in question is a problem junction for fire department operations. The technology enables the emergency vehicles to request the green phase with minimal latency and to be prioritized in traffic. It also increases safety for pedestrians, especially for the deaf. Emergency vehicles can thus drive to the scene of the accident safely and on time.
Increase bicycle traffic
The aim of the Intelligent bicycle Totem is to strengthen bicycle traffic by increasing riding comfort and safety. Anyone who frequently rides a bicycle knows that the ride would be so pleasant if it were not for the many traffic lights that regularly force cyclists to stop and dismount. Thanks to this totem, cyclists will from now on know how and whether they need to change their speed in order to comfortably catch the green light at the intersection. In addition, bicycle prioritization reduces cyclists stopping at a red light by extending the green signal.
Increased safety for vulnerable road users
An important goal of the „Traffic light of the Future“ is to increase safety for pedestrians and cyclists. Yutraffic awareAI and the Collision warning system (turning assistant) ensure this. Thanks to the AI-controlled detection system awareAI, the green phase for pedestrians is automatically requested and extended if necessary. This increases safety when crossing the road, especially for larger groups, schoolchildren or school classes, wheelchair users or elderly people. In addition, the turning assistant warns turning vehicles when particularly vulnerable road users want to cross the junction. A potential danger can thus be recognized in advance and avoided preventively.
Safer intersection crossing for the fire department
Every minute counts for the fire department. The intersection in question is a problem junction for fire department operations. The technology enables the emergency vehicles to request the green phase with minimal latency and to be prioritized in traffic. It also increases safety for pedestrians, especially for the deaf. Emergency vehicles can thus drive to the scene of the accident safely and on time.
Increase bicycle traffic
The aim of the Intelligent bicycle Totem is to strengthen bicycle traffic by increasing riding comfort and safety. Anyone who frequently rides a bicycle knows that the ride would be so pleasant if it were not for the many traffic lights that regularly force cyclists to stop and dismount. Thanks to this totem, cyclists will from now on know how and whether they need to change their speed in order to comfortably catch the green light at the intersection. In addition, bicycle prioritization reduces cyclists stopping at a red light by extending the green signal.
Please briefly explain why your initiative is a good example of improving road safety.
Since intersections are identified as weak spot for the safety of the road users and especially of the VRUs, taking actions to improve the safety and protect the VRUs seems to be of crucial importance for the road authorities. As thoroughly described above our initiative, in cooperation with the Yunex Traffic company, is a good example of improving road safety, since it focuses on the VRUs and on specific scenarios, which are determined as dangerous and are causing accidents. It uses the last technological innovations in the area of sensors and AI to ensure the successfull functionality of all the applications. For example, recognising a person on a wheelchair or elderly people and requesting to extend the green phase of the traffic light for pedestrians is critical for the pedestrians’ safety. Another example is the turning assistant (Collision warning system), which prevents a usual accident at intersections. In contrast to existing systems, a warning is only given when the AI detects a critical situation. This means there is no habituation effect due to a constantly flashing signal. It is important to be mentioned, that most of the technologies that were used in this project are available to organisations and are constantly being improved, so it is easy to implement similar initiative to other intersections, which may be accident hotspots and improve the road safety and comfort.
How have you shared information about your project and its results?
Information about the project „Traffic light of the future“, the technologies and applications that were used as well as some initial results were shared in the public via the news. On the 08.04.2024, a press event was organised by the Central Traffic Management Office of the Free State of Bavaria, where the minister of the Bavarian State Ministry of Housing, Building and Transport introduced the project and presented its applications. The event was sucessfull, many representatives from the german press (newspaper as well as television) attended, and articles have been published in the local, regional and national level. Moreover, the project was presented in the news of the national television of Germany (you can find the link here: Einsatz einer neuartigen Ampel mit künstlicher Intelligenz im bayrischen Straßenverkehr | tagesschau.de), making the project and its initiatives widely known at even the national level.
