ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Orange County is working with LYNX on a pilot program that would give buses priority at traffic signals along International Drive as the county continues long-term planning for more rapid transit options through the STAR plan.<\/p>\n
The STAR plan is a public transit proposal aimed at addressing high-traffic corridors with rapid transit options. The short-term effort of the bus pilot program will focus on Link 42, a bus route that serves tourists and workers traveling to hotels and theme parks. The signal priority technology is expected to begin in the coming weeks at 20 intersections on the route.<\/p>\n
Traffic lights can affect both riders and drivers, said Jose Hoyos, a Link42 bus driver and a board member of the county’s Transportation Mobility Advisory Commission.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are putting pressure on the driver, ‘Hurry up because I am late,’ and there is nothing we can do because we are stuck on red,\u201d Hoyos said.<\/p>\n
Under the pilot program, a Link 42 bus would alert a traffic signal as it approaches. The light would then turn green as soon as it can, depending on cross traffic.<\/p>\n
Hoyos said the goal is to help buses stay on schedule, get riders to work on time and reduce overtime costs when drivers\u2019 shifts run long because of traffic delays.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to save a lot of money on our buses because we are not going to get stuck in traffic,\u201d Hoyos said.<\/p>\n
Transit signal priority is one element of bus rapid transit, which the STAR plan aims to bring to Orange County. The technology is already being used in Miami-Dade County, where a more involved system allows express buses to move through certain intersections without stopping.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the morning, our express bus gets pre-emption, which means it communicates with the intersection before it gets there, the intersection lowers gate arms, changes the light signals on both the bus way and the adjacent streets and the bus is able to pass without stopping,\u201d said Alejandro Barrios, assistant director of construction in Miami-Dade County.<\/p>\n
Orange County\u2019s pilot program will not use pre-emption-like systems used for emergency vehicles. Instead, it will give priority to buses at the selected intersections and allow nearby vehicles traveling in the same direction to get a green light sooner.<\/p>\n
The county will use data from the pilot program to determine whether the system reduces bus travel times, how much time is saved and how the rest of traffic is affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be able to stay on route, stay on schedule and be able to offer what we promised,\u201d Hoyos said.<\/p>\n
Once the data is collected, the county will determine the next steps. If the pilot is successful, the goal is to expand signal priority to other bus routes across Orange County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Orange County is working with LYNX on a pilot program that would give buses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[274,2173,2175,2204,115,1053,1335,768,139,141,140,9429,278,729,2177,1798,2032,835],"class_list":["post-415717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-app-traffic-and-transit","tag-instagram-n13","tag-news","tag-orange","tag-orange-county","tag-orange-county-fl","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-sarah-winkelmann","tag-top-stories","tag-traffic","tag-traffic-and-transit","tag-transportation","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}