Baton Rouge announces traffic light synchronization program

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Mayor-President Sharon Weston-Broome announced a traffic light synchronization program Monday, July 13.

The program is part of the Mayor’s MOVEBR initiative to reduce traffic problems in the city.

More: City working to improve traffic light synchronization in East Baton Rouge Parish

The city will bore new sensors in the ground that can detect how many cars are at a given intersection at any time. Traffic engineers can then adjust the timing of the connected lights in real-time to account for unusually heavy days, accidents, or emergencies.

The engineers will bank that data to inform long-term timing adjustments that maximize the number of vehicles arriving at a light after it’s turned green, for example. Eventually, the computers inside the sensors will be able to make the adjustments themselves through machine-learning.

Under the old system, the city-parish sent engineers to some intersections to manually count the number of cars passing through.

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