Antwerp will be the first city in Flanders to put a supercomputer in charge of the co-ordination of traffic lights at junctions. The city, public transport authority De Lijn and the government of Flanders are spending about €20 million to optimise traffic flow.

The current system, which is 30 years old, can only turn the lights to red or green on the basis of the predicted amount of traffic: It takes into account the standard peak hours, for example. A supercomputer, however, has the ability to adjust its decision-making in the case of unexpected situations such as accidents or when it’s unusually busy at a certain spot. The intelligent traffic lights will be able to inform each other of the traffic that is queuing at each junction in real time.

The gradual installation of the essential infrastructure will start in 2015 one zone at a time and should be finished within two years.

Time and money

Studies show that this intelligent technology can reduce the time wasted in traffic jams at junctions by 64%, but expert Sven Maerivoet of research bureau Transport & Mobility Leuven emphasises that such results would be exceptional. “Experiments in Dresden suggest that public transport lost about 50% less time at congested crossroads,” he says. “But drivers of cars only spent on average 10% less time in queues. However, this still considerably reduces economic losses, emission of greenhouse gases and traffic aggression. Cyclists and pedestrians will benefit as well.”

The Flemish government has also approved an investment of €23.8 million to replace the current systems that for 35 years have been co-ordinating the signalling and automatic braking of Antwerp’s pre-metro network. The new installations will co-ordinate the flow of trams more quickly and precisely, while increasing safety by constantly checking the speed of trams and braking automatically if necessary. The cost of maintenance will also decrease.

Visitors to the coast will also be able to reach their destination more swiftly thanks to intelligent traffic lights on the whole of the 67-kilometre coast tram route. Following a pilot project using KAR technology, all 49 coast trams have now been equipped with the system. The trams send out a GPS signal to traffic lights when they are approaching, which improves traffic safety and flow.

“Because they are all connected to each other, the traffic lights are flexible in taking decisions such as giving priority to a certain tram or arranging a diversion,” explains Maerivoet. The digital innovation is also more cost-efficient than the old electromagnetic detection technology that had to be installed under the roads. Possible defects can be tracked and solved rapidly through a software application.

To examine if the KAR system would be useful in the whole of Flanders, it will also be tested on board De Lijn buses on the Leuven-Brussels axis. Apart from investments in technology, the government of Flanders has expanded the specialised team at the Flemish roads and traffic agency with three new employees, bringing the total of traffic lights experts to seven.