Better Intersections

About

Better Intersections is a tool to record and visualise how long people walking and on bikes have to wait at traffic lights. You can contribute timing measurements yourself. It's focused on Sydney, Australia, but you're welcome to take measurements for any intersection around Australia or the world.

This website is open source on Github (AGPL-3.0 license, contributions welcome!), and you can download the data under an open license ( ODbL) under the heading below.

Read more about about Sydney's traffic signals on Jake Coppinger's blog post, Shining a Light on the Traffic Signals of Sydney (July 2023).

If you have ideas for improvements, please create a Github issue, email me at jake@jakecoppinger.com or message me on Mastodon.

Why does the timing of pedestrian signals matter?

Transport for NSW, the government agency which controls traffic signal timing in Sydney and elsewhere in NSW, has an excellent stated goal of increasing walking and cycling trips - and reducing pedestrian wait times at intersections.

However, there is no public data on traffic light timing in Sydney or NSW.

In the absence of traffic light timing data, and as we hold hope for it to become publicly available; the aim of this project is to crowdsource measurements and inform where positive changes could be made.

This website bridges the excellent TfNSW Active Transport policy guidelines and pedestrians on the street themselves, allowing people on foot (and bicycle) to see their experience represented.

Increasing pedestrian priority and providing crossing opportunities at the right locations and along desire lines, reduces the risk of pedestrian injury at intersections by encouraging safer behaviours. Transport is currently rolling out measures at intersections to improve pedestrian priority in areas of high pedestrian activity. These measures may include automation of pedestrian crossings, reduced pedestrian wait times, provision of pedestrian crossings on missing legs and kerb ramps, where applicable.
TfNSW Active Transport Strategy, page 30. Emphasis added.

Research has shown that 30 seconds is the longest a pedestrian will wait at a signalised crossings before attempting to cross against the 'red man'. (Martin, A., 2006. Factors influencing pedestrian safety: a literature review (No. PPR241). Wokingham, Berks: TRL (Transport for London.)

From the above report:

Hunt, Lyons and Parker (2000) state that 'Although no clear relationship has been established between pedestrian delay and casualties, a more balanced and responsive approach to the allocation of time at Pelican/Puffin crossings has the potential to make a substantial contribution to a decrease in pedestrian casualties as well as improving pedestrian amenity'. They point out that because pedestrians are more likely to become impatient when a red man continues to be shown during periods of low vehicle flow, the reduction of unnecessary delay for pedestrians should encourage pedestrians to use crossings correctly and reduce risk taking.

In 2020, people driving vehicles killed 138 pedestrians on Australian roads (Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (2021) Fact sheet: Vulnerable road users, National Road Safety Strategy.)

How to contribute measurements

Open the form and follow the steps!

How to download the data

You can download a CSV or JSON file of all measurements below.

The data was previously hosted on a Google Form / Google Sheets backend. View data up to the transition on Google Sheets (the above CSV export includes all data).

Further reading