Evaluating the Efficiency of a Traffic Signal Light over a Traffic Policeman

Abstract

The overall effect of traffic is considered to be high, at most of the intersections when they are controlled by traffic signal lights during peak hours . This causes lengthy queues and user inconveniences at intersections. Traffic police officers also control some of the intersections during peak hours in order to reduce this queue length and waiting time. The objectives of this research were to determine the relationship between the queue length formed and vehicular delay at peak hours, when the intersection is controlled by traffic signal lights and traffic policemen. Data was collected in two four-way intersections at Kanatta road / Dudley Senanayake Mawatha and Golumadama intersection. When the queue length was considered by 5-minute time intervals, the number of vehicles in the queue were higher with traffic signal control, compared to police controlled intersection. Further, per signal cycle queues were also counted in the said two scenarios. The observed values were furthers tested using Contingency Table analysis (Chi-square test) to assess whether the effect is statistically significance. Results showed that, queue lengths and the number of waiting hours were higher when the intersection was controlled by traffic signal lights compared to a traffic policeman. However, per cycle waiting time was significantly higher when controlled by policemen. Therefore, when a single-user point of view, the intersection delay may seem higher when controlled by a traffic policeman. However, the overall delay at the intersection is lesser with the police control.