Costa Rica News – It looks like something intelligent is coming to the roads of Costa Rica. Some of Costa Rica’s main roads will be bettered with intelligent traffic lights next year.
The communities of Zapote, Pavas and San Francisco de Dos Rios are part of the plan that the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT) created to cope with traffic congestion.
This project will include Paso Ancho and the La Uruca-Calle Blancos ring roads that are often full of standstill traffic even when it’s not rush hour. A total of 85 more of these devices will be installed. Some are already working in Cartago, Heredia and Alajuela.
So what do these intelligent lights do? They work by sensors or automated control in order to give way to vehicles coming from the most saturated direction. Regulators will operate them with the help of small cameras monitoring congestion. They can make changes to the intervals of time each direction waits at red lights.
The MOPT is going to spend $2.7 million for the purchase and installation of the new traffic lights. By the end of the year a total of 321 traffic lights will have been installed and connected to the centralized system.
They have already put 65 additional normal traffic lights at pedestrian and vehicular crossings that have had complaints of danger from neighbors and drivers. By the end of the year, they will also place 90 new simple devices that are intelligent but without cameras.
