Citation

Parsonson PS, Tarnoff PJ. Transp. Res. Rec. 1979; 737: 24-30.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1979, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A current major research project is aimed at developing guidelines for the selection of types of traffic-signal control at individual (noninterconnected, "isolated") intersections. Most traffic engineers prefer to install fully actuated signals at such locations; however, these are some-what more costly to maintain than semiactuated or pretimed signals. Traffic engineers need to take into account the incremental maintenance costs of the more sophisticated types of control. Almost two years of maintenance-cost data from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) are reported for 121 actuated traffic signals of various designs. The costs include those for field maintenance, bench repair, travel, and parts. Also reported are the annual costs of the time required for the field maintenance of almost 1800 pretimed and actuated signals of the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT). The frequency of repair of various types of controllers and detectors is reported for eight other cities and states. The Caltrans and NYSDOT data were merged to reach conclusions for the total annual cost to maintain electromechanical and solid-state controllers, including microprocessors, for various numbers of phases.