Who controls the timing of the street lights?

Question

street lights are suppose to be timed to the speed limit of the street its on.

Who is suppose to be in charge of them?

Answer 1

There are many variables that go into the timing of traffic signals. There is usually some sort of traffic management division in most larger cities. The electrical shop of your city or county Department of Public Works handles their maintenance.

Answer 2

The city is in charge of them and I think they are timed depending how busy an intersection is and that effects how long they are on.

Answer 3

nobody, there controled by a senceor on the top and when it gets to a certain darkness they turn on. you can see the cencor, me and my mates have thrown a black towel over the one on my road in daylight and it turned on

Answer 4

what you mean is traffic lights, not street lights.

and it would be good if they were timed to the speed limit.

but it would be good to keep in mind that there is traffic in both directions on each street.

and there is traffic in both directions on cross streets also.

timing traffic lights is a real art.

when they turn green traffic doesn't start moving instantly.

cars farther back have to wait until those in front of them start.

that's true in all 4 directions, at each corner.

now we all know that the street you're traveling on is the most important.

(Well, at least the street i'm traveling on is the most important.)

it could be that traffic on the intersecting streets is even worse than it is on your street.

i've thought for some time that it would be an interesting puzzle to design the algorithm for traffic lights, to maximize flow.

but, i've not had the opportunity.

but it gets even worse.

different traffic light manufacturers use different designs for coding.

sometimes 2 lights in a row are 2 different designs, and it's quite hard to get them to work together.

sometimes, particularly at freeway exits, different agencies control the lights, and have different objectives -- specifically, which direction should have priority.

if you've ever tried to get 2 different opposing governmental agencies to work together, ...... don't bother.  it just ain't worth it.