Was driving on Soi Siam this afternoon (both to and from home) and the line of cars was incredible in both directions.

They have implemented traffic lights north/south and east/west direction (apparently on all railroad intersections).

The word is that they are remotely controlled with camera surveillance.

It must be huge task keeping track of all the crossings and to be able to keep traffic flow smooth.

In my opinion, the lights should be switched off, the congestion today was ridiculous.

Any other opinions?

Edh

Edited October 26, 201015 yr by edh

I agree 100% that lights should be off until such time as the authorities in Thailand learn how to use them efficiently. The policy here seems to be to set a light at green until all vehicles from that direction have been cleared (+10 seconds) then move on to next direction and repeat until tempers of drivers in all vehicles at standstill have reached boiling point! No wonder the Thais don't respect them, knowing that missing a green light could mean a 10 minute wait until the next one!

normally i breeze through here but today i had to wait, along with 50-60 other cars that the equipment seemed to think were invisible and had seemingly failed to detect.

the machine must be made by the same firm that made the bomb sniffer

time for a new route into town methinks..........

There is a news story covering this HERE

A single solution for all junctions such as they are trying to implement now - is useless.

Busy junctions like Siam Country Club, Nern Plabwan, Khao Thalow and Chaiyapruek 2 need something more effective due to the volume of traffic at these junctions, maybe it is best to leave them off?? But, smaller junctions like Toongklom Tanman, Nonghin/Pattaya RC definitely need controls in place as there are serious accidents there on a daily basis.

But i guess somebody at city hall's brother/uncle/cousin has a Camera and Pole installation business!

I always use to place a bet with my wife when we approach large traffic jams stating that I am 100% sure that the traffic lights are manually operated by a local police officer.

- I always win those bets.

There are always traffic jams when they decide to operate the traffic flow manually and less of a mess when they are operated automatically.

Where I come from they use to create so called "green waves" which makes you have a green light for maybe at least two or three intersections. But I guess the lights here in Pattaya are to close to each other to make that work here.

I hope that they turn off the lights at the railroad crossing again - it did not work at all.

Edh

All back to normal again this evening when they restored the lights to flash instead..

I hope it stays so

Most traffic lights in the world allow both sides to pass simultaneously, i.e. north/south or east/west. Here only one of the four directions at the time is greeen, causing the long backed up queues.

Oh no not again. They did this on NPW to when they first installed the lights there. Caused backups up to 2 kilometres.

I predict city-wide traffic gridlock when they turn on all the new traffic lights they have installed around town recently.

They will have to change all the busy road junctions to flyover and under in the end as traffic lights will not work on the very busy junctions there, but no money to do this now so they will keep trying with traffic lights on then off. I would say that turning them on when in the busy rush hour is OK that's when its a free for all and at its most dangerous but should be left off in the times of light traffic.

regards

Scotsman

They will have to change all the busy road junctions to flyover and under in the end as traffic lights will not work on the very busy junctions there, but no money to do this now so they will keep trying with traffic lights on then off. I would say that turning them on when in the busy rush hour is OK that's when its a free for all and at its most dangerous but should be left off in the times of light traffic.

regards

Scotsman

I would prefer they leave them off during peak times, adding 2 hours to my journey home is not something I enjoy.

Does anyone have any stats on accidents on the bypass, I would hazard a guess more accidents happen late at night/early morning with the lights not operational than accidents during peak hours with lights not operational.

Edited October 27, 201015 yr by Spoonman

They will have to change all the busy road junctions to flyover and under in the end as traffic lights will not work on the very busy junctions there, but no money to do this now so they will keep trying with traffic lights on then off. I would say that turning them on when in the busy rush hour is OK that's when its a free for all and at its most dangerous but should be left off in the times of light traffic.

regards

Scotsman

I would prefer they leave them off during peak times, adding 2 hours to my journey home is not something I enjoy.

Does anyone have any stats on accidents on the bypass, I would hazard a guess more accidents happen late at night/early morning with the lights not operational than accidents during peak hours with lights not operational.

When the traffic lights are switched off in the rush hour traffic the end result is a FREE FOR ALL with accidents and the police have to come and sort it out and stay and do traffic control. Now we know the BIB don't like working that hard so they will try and find a easy way out like switching the lights on. They don't care if you have a 2 hour journey home but I suppose its better safe than sorry. There is no way to control the traffic on the railway road junctions with traffic lights and you could see that when they were building this road on the cheap it had to be fly over under pass for it to work, so we all know this is Thailand so you get traffic lights that can't be switched on or off as it has problems both ways so there is no right answer to this problem we just have to make the best of it and drive very careful at all times.

Regards

Scotsman

When the traffic lights are switched off in the rush hour traffic the end result is a FREE FOR ALL with accidents and the police have to come and sort it out and stay and do traffic control.

I come through the Siam country intersction every night at 6.30pm, never have I seem an accident and norally the free for all (yes its congested) flows quiet well, the only times has it been an ass to come through was when they first put in the lights (Khao Noi, my soi was worse, backup up on Suk road to the klang lights).

I vote down with the lights.

Disregard wrong thread.

Edited October 28, 201015 yr by proximity