Department of Transportation

To provide pedestrians with a safer and smoother traffic environment and to implement the humanistic transportation policy, the Traffic Engineering Office of Taipei City Government (hereafter referred to as the TEO) has been developing lightweight signal controllers since 2011. Through a size reduction of 66.4%, controllers can be hung on signal poles without separately setting a base and a box on the sidewalk to accommodate the controller. This reduces obstacles on intersection sidewalk corners, as well as enhances the barrier-free environment.
The height of a conventional signal controller at an intersection with signal lights in Taipei City tops 170 cm, including the base, with a width of 57 cm and a depth of 50 cm. These controllers often stand on intersection corners or traffic islands, which cause pedestrian-vehicle collisions or obscure the vision when pedestrians are waiting for the green light or when vehicles are making a turn. As a trial, the TEO has downsized the signal controllers since 2011, so that they can be additionally hung on signal poles without requiring a base and a box to be separately set up on the sidewalk. In so doing, pedestrian space can be widened, and obscured vision at intersection corners can be reduced.
The TEO mentions that the height of the downsized signal controller is 58.5 cm, the width is 51.5 cm and the thickness is 35 cm. Compared with the conventional signal controller, the size is reduced by about 66.4%. In the future, downsized signal controllers will be additionally hung on signal poles; the overall size will be reduced by about 79.2%, as opposed to the current installation on the 60 cm-high base. The TEO installed a downsized controller at the entrance of Lane 121 of Songren Rd., and another one at Shifu Rd. intersection in front of the Taipei World Trade Center on March 20 and June 27, 2012, respectively. To this day, the trial operation has produced stable results.
According to the TEO, out of the 2400-plus locations with signal controllers inspected throughout Taipei City, 480 were likely to result in pedestrian and vehicle traffic flow problems or obscure vision. Hence, targeting the 219 controller locations in lanes and alleys where the net-width of the sidewalks is insufficient and the currently installed controllers could affect pedestrian and vehicle traffic flows or obscure drivers’ vision, the TEO will take priority to replace the current controllers with the downsized ones during 2013-2014, in order to create a barrier-free and humanistic traffic environment.

2013-06-07