What's with Swiss traffic lights? So often a road with heavy traffic has the short end of the traffic light cycle, waiting for bloody ever whilst the empty road hogs all the green.

Are the people who program these sitting watching the CCTV traffic watch cameras laughing their arses off at the queue of pissed off motorists???? or are they just dumb, dyslexic or something?

Sitting in a long queue leaving Zurich I timed it - 1 minute red, 10 seconds green, 1 minute red, 20 seconds Green, 1 minute red....

10 seconds?!?!?!? WTF were they thinking?

Completely pointless traffic jam

Most traffic lights, therefore, continue to be programmed offline, regardless of the realities of the road.

The problem, Professor Helbing explains, is that heavy investments in traffic light systems were made in the 1960s and 70s rendering most systems today, due to use, age and technological advancement, antiquated.

Forty to fifty years ago when traffic volume was lighter, the main job of traffic light systems was to manage peak traffic during the day or, for example, sporting events. The lights were centrally controlled, and not programmed to adjust in real time.

Source: Go with the Flow

How many buses were passing the junction? Some lights give priority to public transport which carry a low power radio transmitter, and command a green light.

It depends on where you saw it but you could have been a victim of sentry switching, designed to regulate the amount of traffic.

In the city of Zurich, crap like that is often done on purpose to coerce the populace into using public transportation.

I will say it again, Swiss love their laws, rules and money....it's part of their politics, get over it and welcome to CH.

The traffic lights are politically motivated - until 10pm and on Sundays, when it's their day off...

Isn't it clear ? Either those in charge live in that "empty" road, and want to have green light when being on their way ! Or know somebody they dislike living on the busy road

That is certainly done in the UK. I knew a Highways Engineer a few years ago. He explained how they would extend the red cycle until motorists decided to use an alternative route. This kept the traffic flows down on certain town centre roads

You will run into this every now and then in CH. But as a rule I never found that Swiss traffic lights actually take right of way away from motorists without giving it to others.

Here in the USA, I find myself waiting at intersections at all times of day, in all types of traffic, at red lights when there is absolutely NO traffic sitting at the green. For example, left turn arrows that are timed to exist regardless of whether or not someone is waiting at the intersection. This is not a question of syncing to other signals as they are not consistent with other signals but of fixed duration. Why this is tolerated in a country with almost no functional mass transportation, I can't understand.

I guess my point is that it can be, and in certain other places, often is worse than it generally is in CH.

As someone else already mentioned, you will have to learn the art of coping.

Good Luck.

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I spotted 2 engineers working on the traffic control box a few days ago. Not in Zurich but in Basel. Laptop on the top, terminal cable attached into traffic control box with all its pretty flashing LEDs. Reds, yellows and greens.

The engineers looked in their mid-twenties. And the flashing LEDs looked pretty.

Pretty flashing lights are pretty.

CK

On the other hand, I heard a highway engineer on Radio 4, explaining that by adjusting the red cycle by just a few seconds on the Hanger Lane Gyratory, he improved the throughput of traffic by a few hundred cars per hour.

Oooooh, want one.

Not having this.

As far as I can see the traffic lights work well - the green wave on my way into Oerlikon is set to match the speed limit so time your approach to the first green and the next 4 sets of lights are green too. Another example is the entry to the highway in Wattwil - lights always change to green as you approach. Same goes for the lights at Rappi as you approach the highway in the direction of Eschenbach.

I also like the fact that they go orangey flashy at night and leave it up to you .

How about the engineers? pretty too?

You should have given the sods a pocket calculator, they apparently need it.

I think that explains why it seems that every time I need to cross the street for the 80 bus line, the pedestrian light gets skipped and the 80 goes through, to the stop, and leaves again before I get the go ahead!

I can sympathise with the fact that Public Transport is given priority over cars/pedestrians and others.
But how about pedestrians? Pedestrians are given an extremely short time to cross the street and once you miss that window of opportunity, you have to wait a whole cycle. This seems particularly bad in the French side.

Actually, the majority of the lights are triggered by traffic. If you look at the macadam in front of the crosswalk, it will have a clearly visible 'loop'. This is to detect the change in the magnetic field caused by a car above it.

this has been something that struck me since moving here last summer, the main road through Winterthur has tons of poorly phased lights. The whole road system needs some proper traffic flow analysis as its pretty poor, even makes England look less retarded then I thought.

on the plus side the flashing amber out of peak times is great