By: Whitney Holmes
WATE 6
Alcoa, TN - A new, single camera traffic light system in Alcoa is helping improve the flow on the roads and prevent accidents.
The system is called GridSmart. Officials showed it off Friday at the intersection of Lincoln Road and Hall Road.
Thanks to the new system, Alcoa officially became a smart city, recognized by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America) for putting new technology to work to manage traffic flow.
The system was developed in Oak Ridge by a company called Aldis. It aims to keep cars moving, which is good for drivers as well as the environment.
“It drives down the amount of time people are in their cars and the fuel that they are burning,” explains Scott Belcher, president and CEO of ITS America.
The system uses a single camera, instead of four cameras, to see the entire intersection, not just part of it. A computer then uses that information to control the lights.
“It looks like a fisheye image but what is remarkable is, you see the entire image. There is nothing on that intersection that we don’t see with a single camera,” explained Aldis President and CEO Vig Sherrill.
In the past, intersection loop detectors would communicate with lights when cars were a short distance from the intersection.
With the new system, the camera knows when there’s a long line of traffic and the light needs to stay green longer.
“Because we see the entire intersection, we can make good decisions on what to do with vehicles as they enter the intersection and as they leave,” Sherrill explains.
“If we see a car coming in, we can change the lights accordingly. If we see a truck or bus coming in, we can actually give them a higher priority to get them through the intersection faster which gets everybody through the intersection faster,” Sherrill continues.
Cutting down on wait times may also cut down on red light runners and possibly save lives.
The technology also saves money. A system with one camera costs $10,000, which is half of what a system with four cameras costs, Sherrill says.
He also says Aldis is working on the next generation of this system, which may be able to save even more lives.
The cameras will be able to help prevent accidents by detecting red light runners and holding signals on red.
Alcoa Mayor Don Mull says the city has other intersections with the GridSmart system and plans to add more.