100 years of traffic lights
08/13/2014
It's hard to believe, but it's already 100 years since a now commonplace device, the traffic light, was first used. It was the USA, or more precisely the city of Cleveland in Ohio, that set a milestone in traffic control with this pioneering act. However, there were already precursors at the time, as a traffic light system controlled by police officers via a wire was installed in Parliament Square in London as early as 1868. Gas lamps in green and red gave right of way to horse-drawn carriages (there were no cars yet) and pedestrians. However, the experiment was abandoned due to the risk of explosion.
In 1924, Siemens put the famous pentagonal traffic light tower into operation at Potsdamerplatz, the busiest traffic junction in Europe at the time.
Since then, red-green-yellow has made a triumphal march around the world and has become an integral part of the modern urban (and rural) landscape. It has been integrated into traffic management systems to better control the avalanches of cars and increase the capacity of traffic routes. But it has also been used to achieve politically motivated flow reductions.
