Here in St.Petersburg, Fl. I stumbled upon a situation where the intelligent traffic control could have used some more smarts (or more sensors). Coming up to my usual intersection where I make a left turn I wound up waiting for 6 light changes before someone walked up to the senior citizen at the head of the now very long line and told him to move his car forward 10 feet. He had stopped short of the sensor so the controller figured no left turns were waiting. One complete cycle of lights at this intersection is nearly 5 minutes. Once in the turn lane heavy traffic volume prevents anyone from bailing out.

Perhaps some version of adaptive logic would allow the traffic controller to realize that during the evening rush hour there will always be left turning traffic. Maybe use the sensor to determine when the number of left turns reduces significantly before using it to control the light. (in this case well past midnight!)

Hal