For the first time in the country, a “slowdown light”, which turns green only when motorists respect the speed limit, was installed in Brossard as part of a 90-day pilot project aimed at improving the safety of pedestrians in a school zone.
In recent years, in France, municipalities have installed on their territory thousands of so-called “intelligent” traffic lights, since they are equipped with a radar which makes it possible to detect the speed of a vehicle which is about 30 meters away of these. If it respects the permitted speed limit, the traffic light, which displays a red light by default, will then turn green. Conversely, the smart light will remain red if the vehicle is traveling above the speed limit while it is a few tens of meters from this installation. The motorist will then have to stop for the light to turn green.
These smart lights are thus intended to be a complementary awareness tool to traditional traffic lights, which remain necessary, in particular to ensure respect for pedestrian crossings at intersections.
“We have a lot of hope that it will help to secure the roads. It’s a new traffic calming measure,” says Signalisation Kalitec’s sales and marketing director, Anthony Lapointe. The family business, based in Laval, has reached an agreement with the French company Élan Cité, the originator of these educational lights, in order to be able to manage the distribution of this technology across Canada.
This is how a first pilot project in Canada was announced Monday in the city of Brossard, where an educational traffic light – called “Fred” by the company Signalisation Kalitec – was installed about forty meters from the road. Marie-Laurier Academy, a private school in the area. For 90 days, this technology will collect real-time information on the speed of vehicles before and after passing this smart traffic light. These will then be stored in a mobile application which also allows you to control this smart light remotely.
The data collected during this pilot project will then be forwarded to the Ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable in the hope of convincing it to modify its road sign standards so that the presence of this technology can be officially regulated. Because, currently, such smart lights are not authorized outside of restricted pilot projects, such as the one carried out in Brossard, since the use of these has not yet been supervised by the Quebec government.
“I would tend to say that they will possibly position themselves quickly because it is a security element that is very promising,” advances Anthony Lapointe, in reference to the Quebec government.
The Ministry of Transport was unable to answer our questions on Monday.
The carrot instead of the stick
The Mayor of Brossard, Doreen Assaad, hopes that this pilot project will encourage more motorists to respect the 30 km/h speed limit in this sector, where many pedestrians of primary and secondary age walk daily. . “We want to encourage motorists with a carrot and not a stick to slow down,” she said in an interview with the Duty.
The mayor would also like this technology to eventually spread elsewhere on her territory on a permanent basis, if the law allows it. “We want to demonstrate that the department should consider adopting this technology,” says the mayor, who said she was “excited” by this pilot project. “We are going to slowly bring about a change in culture” in order to encourage motorists to “respect” pedestrians more, she foresees.
For municipalities, these traffic lights, whose initial cost varies from $15,000 to $20,000, have the advantage of being easy to install, since they can be powered by energy solar. They thus make it possible to avoid having to excavate roads to bury electrical wiring, notes Anthony Lapointe. “It will be very interesting for the cities. »
These pedestrian lights can only be installed on roads with at most one lane in each direction and where the speed limit is 50 km/h or less. Despite these constraints, such lights could potentially be installed in multiple locations in municipalities across the province, including schools, parks and residential areas, argues Anthony Lapointe. The latter also notes that studies have shown that this technology helps to encourage motorists to slow down, thus reducing road accidents involving pedestrians.
Anthony Lapointe also intends to try to convince other municipalities to take inspiration from the initiative taken by the City of Brossard. “Technically, we could do about fifty pilot projects this year, in Quebec or elsewhere in the country,” he says. To be continued.