TYLER, Texas — The City of Tyler continues to upgrade its traffic signals to have a better flow of traffic. Those improvements are also being installed with first responders in mind.
The traffic signal preemption system is already helping firefighters cut time when responding to emergencies. This feature has been in the pilot stage since December.
The traffic signal preemption system will allow fire trucks to give themselves "a green light and a red light to everybody else as they’re going through an intersection responding to an emergency call," said City of Tyler Traffic Engineer Cameron Williams.
All 10 fire stations within the city are equipped with this technology -- something Williams said they hope to fully roll out by the end of the calendar year.
"This is one of the newer versions. We’ve never had it in Tyler," Williams said.
The technology works like your cellphone. The fire engines are "calling" the traffic signals letting them know they’re on their way to call. The city said they’ve seen response times go down since this pilot program started.
"We’ve seen reductions of 20 to 30 seconds on these which is a 16 to 30% reduction in their travel time from point A to point B," Williams said.
Equipment for this technology and other traffic signal upgrades cost the city a little over $1.2 million - this cost will allow fire engines to not have to travel on opposite lanes or hoping raised medians.
"(It's) ultimately just safer going through intersections for them and the traveling public," Williams said.
He added the signal lights will retime themselves after a fire engine gives itself the green light when responding to a call.
Almost 85% of signals in Tyler are capable of changing colors when a fire engine approaches. Williams hopes to have all signals communicating with fire engines soon.