THE EFFECT OF TRAFFIC LIGHT COUNTDOWN TIMER ON RED LIGHT RUNNING

Red-light running occurs when a driver enters an intersection after the traffic signal has turned red. This situation then resolves to minor accidents and even lost of life. Due to this critical problem, countdown timer is installed at the traffic light with a hope to reduce the number of red light violent. However, the effect of this countdown timer to the red light running in Malaysia is never been studied. This project evaluated the case in detail and clarifies the findings. Two intersections are chosen which are with and without countdown timer that representing an upstream and a downstream. Three stations are identified, namely Station 1 (Intersection Balai Polis Pekan Baru), Station 2 (Intersection Silibin) and Station 3 (Intersection Pasir Puteh). Traffic survey is conducted by leaving the video camera at the right angle of the intersection to capture the intersection movements. The recorded data are run through a television to project the visual and traffic count is performed. The levels of service (LOS) of all the intersections involved in the traffic survey are obtained through aaSIDRA software. The percentages of red light running were derived from the data summary. The Chi-Square statistical analysis is carried out from those percentages. The statistical analysis shows that the effect of countdown timer on the number of red light running for Station 1 and Station 2, are not significant but shown a significant effect on Station 3 at 95% confidence level. By percentages, the road users who comply with the red light, cross the intersection during amber and violate the red light are approximately the same for both intersections with and without timer at Station 1. The percentages of road users who violate the red light and cross the intersection during amber were approximately reduced by half at intersection with countdown timer in Station 2. The percentage of compliance to the red light was tremendously higher at the upstream compared downstream intersection in Station 3 case. The percentages of road user who violate the red light and cross the intersection during amber were remarkably lower at intersection with countdown timer. Results obtained showed that the installation of countdown timer at the signalized intersection able to reduce the number of red light running