Millions of people depend on public transit every day to get them where they need to go in a safe and timely fashion. Cities that want to give their riders a predictable, consistent transit experience are doing so with the help of Opticom™ transit signal priority – or TSP – and advanced schedule management.
How does it work?
Here’s an example: Transit vehicles that are running late can request priority from the traffic signal. If that request is granted, Opticom TSP truncates or extends the green cycle time for better schedule adherence, allowing transit vehicles to safely make up lost time without compromising traffic flow.
When it comes to saving time and costs, TSP has been shown in studies to reduce travel time delays by up to forty percent; boost ridership by up to ten percent; lower emissions by up to thirty percent; and reduce fuel costs by up to nineteen percent.
And braking less can help prolong vehicle life and stretch an agency’s budget by reducing the need for maintenance and other operating costs.
Advanced features like conditional priority and relative priority allow TSP to co-exist with emergency vehicle preemption and give traffic managers a measure of control over the priority control system’s usage.
When two vehicles approaching the same intersection make competing requests for priority, relative priority decides which request is more important: in this case, the emergency vehicle.
Conditional priority uses information from the vehicle to help prioritize when to grant TSP and if it should be turned on or off for a connected vehicle.
For example, a bus that is behind schedule may meet the threshold for conditional priority.
With more fleets becoming fully electrified and transit agencies installing Bus Rapid Transit systems around the country, TSP will only become more essential for growing, innovative public transit agencies.
Check out a few case studies to see how transit agencies are giving their riders a predictable, consistent transit experience with the help of Opticom™ transit signal priority or connect with your Opticom rep via the links below.
Centralized success
GTT worked with Greenman-Pedersen, Inc to model and deploy a centralized TSP solution that reduced travel times by up to 18 percent along one of the world’s busiest bus routes.
Click to view this archived presentation from Victor Darias and Mark Yedlin.
Case studies
With nearly 50 years experience deploying distributed transit and emergency vehicle priority control systems, Opticom is a proven solution for more than 3,100 cities worldwide.
Learn about some of these city’s success stories by reading a case study.
Industry experts at your service.
