100 years of traffic lights! August 5th, 2014
Exactly one hundred years ago, on August 5, 1914, the American Traffic Light Company installed the first electric traffic light at the intersection of 105th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland. It had a red and green signal and made a beep when switching.
one of the first electric traffic lights
In fact, the first traffic light was installed on December 10, 1868 in London near the British Parliament. Its inventor is John Peak Knight. The traffic light was manually controlled and had two semaphore arrows: raised horizontally meant a stop signal, and lowered at an angle of 45° meant moving with caution. In the dark, a rotating gas lamp was used, with the help of which red and green signals were given, respectively. The traffic light was used to make it easier for pedestrians to cross the street, and its signals were intended for vehicles - while pedestrians are walking, vehicles must stop. However, this device did not work for long. Less than a month later, on January 2, 1869, a traffic light gas lamp exploded, injuring the traffic light policeman.
After this advent, traffic lights were forgotten for almost 50 years. Therefore, perhaps, August 5, 1914 should be considered his real birthday. A traffic light in the familiar three-color (red, yellow, green) design appeared in 1920. Drive straight and turn left when the signal is green. But turning right... was allowed at any time in the absence of interference.
Following America, the Old World adopted traffic lights. The first was installed in 1922 in Paris. Other European capitals followed suit.
German traffic lights had a rather interesting design. They were a small tower with a booth where a policeman climbed in and regulated traffic. Needless to say, the advent of traffic lights has significantly simplified traffic management. For example, on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, before the appearance of traffic lights, as many as 11 police officers were involved in regulating traffic.
By the way, one of these towers is still preserved in Berlin.
In the USSR, the first traffic light was installed on January 15, 1930 in Leningrad at the intersection of 25 October and Volodarsky avenues (now Nevsky and Liteyny avenues). And the first traffic light in Moscow appeared on December 30 of the same year at the corner of Petrovka and Kuznetsky Most streets.
Our country, as often happens, did not adopt Western experience, but went its own way. This is how the first traffic lights in Moscow looked unusual for a modern driver.
The device resembled a lantern, on each side of which there was a circle divided into unequal parts. It is very similar to a clock, where there is a hand that goes around in a circle. The color it points to is the signal.
However, such traffic lights did not take root for long. Soon they were replaced with classic ones. 
However, even here everything was not like that of other people. Red and green colors were in places opposite to the current ones. Only in 1959 did the USSR accede to the International Convention on Road Traffic and the Protocol on Road Signs and Signals. The traffic light has acquired a modern look.
Almost until the end of the Soviet era, a large number of traffic lights were controlled manually. A special person sat in a glass booth and pressed buttons to regulate the movement.
Fortunately, science has not stood still. Now the traffic lights themselves switch to the desired mode according to the programmed program. However, even now you can sometimes see how manual control is carried out.
By the way, a traffic light is not only a stand with multi-colored light bulbs, but also a controller that controls them. This is what the electronic components of a modern traffic light look like.
The average cost of constructing a new traffic light facility ranges from 1.5 to 5 million rubles.
The maintenance and regulation of this entire facility in Moscow is carried out by the Traffic Management Center, which a couple of years ago was supposed to unite all the city’s traffic lights into a single Intellectual Transport System. But something didn't work out.
Did you know that in our country there is a traffic light monument, and not even one?
In Novosibirsk (installed in 2006),
in Tomsk (2010).
There is even a whole traffic light tree in Penza (2011). It turns out that the head of the local administration proposed making it from old traffic lights.
photo Alexander Kachkaev
True, the idea is not entirely original, but clearly borrowed from London, where the world-famous Traffic Light tree is located. But for conservative Russia this is a big step forward.
photo wikipedia
We laughed and that's enough. A traffic light is a serious matter. It is worth quoting a famous phrase from a 1923 patent: The purpose of the traffic light is to make the order of passage through the intersection independent of the person sitting in the car.
Let us raise our glasses so that this principle will never be violated. Happy holiday!)
Most of us daily encounter such an invention of mankind as a traffic light. How often do we think about who and when came up with such a useful device that helps regulate the movement of vehicular and pedestrian flows on our roads?
The emergence of the first traffic lights
The first traffic light in the history of mankind was installed quite a long time ago, back in December 1868. This happened in the capital of Great Britain - London, near the Houses of Parliament. The creator of this traffic light was an engineer named John Pick Knight, who was previously in charge of the corresponding devices on railway transport, then called semaphores.
The appearance of the first traffic light was significantly different from its today's counterparts. It was manually controlled and was a simple design with a set of two semaphore arrows. An arrow located horizontally meant stopping, and an arrow raised upward at an angle of 45 degrees meant moving with special vigilance. At night, the arrows were replaced with a gas lamp of the corresponding colors. Red meant stop, and green allowed further movement.
The main purpose of the traffic light was to facilitate the movement of pedestrian flows across the roadway.
Invention of electric traffic lights
The creator of the first traffic light powered by an electrical network was a US citizen living in Utah named Lester Wire, who in 1912 developed a traffic light with two signals, red and green, respectively. However, this project was not patented.
In 1914, in Cleveland, one of the American traffic light companies installed four electric traffic lights at once, designed by another engineer, James Hogue. These traffic lights were located at the intersection of Euclid Avenue and One Hundred and Fifth Street. These traffic lights, in addition to shining red and green, also emitted sound signals. The system was controlled by an on-duty police officer located in a specially built glass booth near the intersection.
The first three-color traffic lights appeared a little later, in 1920. They appeared almost simultaneously on the streets of New York, as well as in Detroit. They were designed by John F. Harris and William Potts, respectively.
The first European country to install traffic lights was France. It was in Paris in 1922 that residents of Western Europe also joined the ranks of citizens driving on the roads, guided by traffic lights. Electric traffic lights “reached” only in 1927 in England (the state where this invention of mankind saw the light of day for the first time).
In the USSR, for the first time, a traffic light was installed in Leningrad at the intersection of Volodarsky and 25 October Avenue (today called Liteiny and Nevsky Avenues, respectively). This happened in mid-January 1930. In Moscow, the first traffic light was installed almost a year later, on December 30 of the same 1930.
Yuri Moskalenko
On August 5, 1914, 95 years ago, the world's first traffic lights appeared at the intersection of Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street in the American city of Cleveland. They had switchable red and green lights and emitted a warning signal.
It would seem that everything is clear: there is a specific date, and all that remains is to see who came up with such a system? But in reality, everything is not so simple: here, as with the invention of football, several countries at once claim to be called the founders of this folk game. With traffic lights, too, everything is not so clear: there are plenty of contenders for the right to invention. It’s not for nothing that the famous poetess Larisa Rubalskaya once came up with the following lines:
Who invented the traffic light?
“It was, by the way,
Many years ago.
The plane was invented by a pilot,
The gardener invented a garden,
The tourist invented the road
The football player invented the ball.
But there's a lot left
Unsolvable problems.
Still unknown
Who invented the traffic light?
Who invented the traffic light? –
Still unknown.
Everyone does what they want
Whatever comes to mind.
And one day, by the way,
He will invent something.
A nail to the wall, a teapot to the jam,
Black bread for sour cabbage soup,
Much in life is not accidental
Wonderful things."
Who comes first?
The British are trying to take away the championship from the Americans. And they have a reason for this - the great-grandfather of the modern traffic light was installed on December 10, 1868 in London, near the British Parliament building. Its inventor, J.P. Knight, a specialist in railway semaphores, simply transferred the principle adopted in his department. His “traffic light” was manually controlled and had two semaphore wings. If the wings were raised horizontally, this meant a “stop” signal, and when they were lowered at an angle of 45 degrees, movement was allowed, but only “with caution.” In addition, a gas lantern was suspended from a high iron pole, covered with red glass on one side and green glass on the other. The lantern could be turned in one direction or the other using a handle installed at its base.
Daylight hours in London on December 10 are as short as a sparrow's beak. Not everyone had time to “slip through” during daylight hours. For the “latecomers,” Knight came up with a backlight. The “switch” of the signals was a special policeman who turned on the required light. But this invention only worked for less than a month - on January 2, 1869, the gas in the lantern exploded for some unknown reason, the policeman was seriously injured, and later died in the hospital. After which the “bobbies” flatly refused to stand guard near the gas lamp. Regulation has faded away. At least for a long 44 years.
Why does a detective need a traffic light?
In 1912, 24-year-old Salt Lake City police detective Lester Wire invented the first electric traffic light. First he made a large wooden box with a sloping roof, then circular holes in which there were glass, painted red and green. In order for everyone to see the “traffic light”, the box was installed on a long pole, and from it the wires were lowered in snakes onto a special cart. Here was the “control panel” for the traffic light.
And yet, many experts believe that the real traffic light was born on August 5, 1914 and was invented by Garrett Morgan, an African-American inventor and businessman from Cleveland, Ohio. Actually, Garrett needed a traffic light only after he bought his first car. His invention operated on the same principle as semaphores at railway sidings. The only difference was that Morgan came up with this move: each signal (red and green) turned on automatically for a certain amount of time. It is on this principle that almost all modern traffic lights operate. Both with and without hints in the form of a digital countdown...
True, Morgan managed to obtain a patent for the invention only nine years later, in 1923. And four years later, two inventors at once managed to “improve” the system proposed by Garrett. For example, such a “passage” was not without interest - if an approaching driver saw a red light at a traffic light, it would sound a horn using a special horn. The signal reached the ears of the policeman in the booth, who immediately switched the light. True, this system worked only up to a certain point, until the number of cars exceeded all permissible limits. Not every traffic controller could navigate the cacophony of sounds...
Italians have their own traffic light...
Here are two more interesting facts. Firstly, the yellow traffic light appeared in 1918, and secondly, in the Soviet Union, the first traffic light was installed in 1924 at the intersection of Kuznetsky Most and Petrovka streets in Moscow.
And the last thing: the coolest traffic light was invented by the Italians. This is what they call a special diet, according to which you can lose a few kilograms without blinking an eye….
They advise starting your meal with yellow foods. For example, potatoes, pumpkin, omelet, bell pepper of the appropriate color, banana, orange, persimmon, tangerine.
And finally, the meal ends with red foods and dishes: shrimp, lobster, salmon, tomatoes, carrots. And it is recommended to finish everything off with raspberries, strawberries, cherries, and pomegranates.
As you can see, here the colors also “switch” one after another...
This year, on August 5, 2015, the world celebrated the 101st birthday of the electric traffic light system. On August 5, 1914, in Cleveland, Ohio, engineers installed the world's first electric traffic light, which had green and red lights, at an intersection. A traffic light controlled traffic on the street for four road intersections. In honor of this event, even Google prepared a corporate logo search, which on August 5, 2015 was visited by the world's first traffic light on the road.
In technical terms, the device in Cleveland may not seem like a major breakthrough, but, nevertheless, compared to manually controlled traffic lights that were installed in London and other countries around the world, the new electric traffic light was noticeably ahead of its predecessors in ease of use and the meaning of its work. .
This was controlled from a distance with the help of a policeman who was sitting in a glass booth not far from the device. Let us recall that before this, the world used traffic lights that had only manual mechanical control, because of which the policeman had to stand next to him to switch the traffic light mode, which, you see, is not very convenient and dangerous.
The appearance of the first electric traffic light marks a key moment in the transformation and development of highways in the early 20th century. It is thanks to this invention that there is no chaos and chaotic traffic on our streets.
If we remember our past, before the advent of traffic lights, streets in populated areas were a chaotic movement of carriages, hand carts, and other horse-drawn vehicles. There was also no traffic regulation for pedestrians.
Why did the traffic light appear?
Horses, buggies, stagecoaches, carts, horse-drawn trams and pedestrians have interfered with each other on the road for many years, crossing paths on the streets of populated areas. But despite a certain amount of chaos that reigned on city streets before the 20th century, the world didn't really need traffic lights because everything was so slow. The average speeds of horse-drawn vehicles are noticeably behind the average speeds of modern bicycles.
But as soon as cars appeared in the world and began to appear in cities, the world was faced with a problem associated with the speed of vehicles. As it turned out, we were not ready for the advent of motor transport, and we did not have a system to make transport safe for all road users. As a result, with the advent of cars around the world, there was a sharp increase in the number of people killed in them.
In the early 1900s, the biggest problem was observed in large US cities, where in a short time, due to the development of the automobile industry, the number of vehicles literally increased several times before our eyes. As a result, in just a few years, the number of fatal accidents involving pedestrians who were faced with the problem of crossing streets along which cars were moving at high speeds sharply increased.
Graph of traffic fatalities in the early 1900s (USA)
In order to reduce the accident rate, the world's first traffic rules began to appear, which prescribed the rules for driving certain sections of the road.
In the picture you see a rule that prohibited a car from turning left at an intersection with pedestrians at an acute angle. According to this norm, the driver was required to turn at a right angle at the intersection
Most of the rules concerned left turns of cars. At first this may not seem like a big deal. But, for example, the ban on crossing an intersection at an acute angle, for the first time in the world, made the passage of a section of the road where flows of pedestrians and other vehicles intersect safer and more convenient.
The rule required that when turning left, cross the intersection at a right angle. Thanks to this, it was possible to reduce the number of accidents involving cars and pedestrians.
But as soon as a rule appears that must be followed, there will certainly be many people who will break them. The authorities of many US cities faced the same problem after the appearance of the first traffic rules, which led to an even greater increase in the accident rate after a decrease in the accident rate.
As a result, at many intersections, policemen with whistles appeared in the center, who stood in the center of the intersection of roads and controlled the passage of a section of the road strictly at right angles (in the diagram above the policeman is indicated by point “C”).
This organization was one of the first in the world to regulate traffic safely. This traffic reform turned out to be a major step forward with the goal of smarter traffic to overcome traffic chaos.
At busy intersections, police officers monitoring the correct movement of cars worked in tandem with police officers who manually switched mechanical traffic lights with several warning lights. Also, in some places, semaphores were installed, which had inscriptions instructing drivers what to do (stop or move).
But with the growth of vehicles on the roads, standing in the center of intersections has become unsafe. Also, many drivers were outraged by the frequent mistakes of the police, who often could not cope with the large flow of cars.
How did the new electric traffic light work?
The system installed in Cleveland was not the first in the world to use multi-colored signal lights to control traffic. As early as 1868, police in London used a manual signal semaphore with red and green lights, which have long been used throughout the world as a stop and go signal.
The problem with this semaphore was the principle of its operation. Gas was used inside the device. As a result, after a month of using such a device, a tragic incident occurred, which stopped the development of such manual semaphores. So, while a police officer was using the device, it exploded in his hands, causing injury to a person.
Finally, in 1914, it was installed at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street, one of the busiest intersections in Cleveland. This device was installed by American Traffic Signal, commissioned by the city authorities. This device was based on technology that James Hodge had patented a year earlier.
The picture shows the original traffic light diagram, which was submitted in 1913 for patent registration. Please note that the traffic light, in addition to color signals, also uses inscriptions. But Cleveland didn't use traffic lights with signs.
The design of the first traffic light was simple. The operator in the cab flipped switches to turn the green or red light on or off. The cabin and the device were connected by electrical wires. Traffic lights were installed on each side of the intersection. The cabin was installed in the center of the intersection so that the operator could see all the devices.
The control panel also had an emergency mode, which was activated by the police in order to let the fire truck and other special vehicles through. To do this, the operator switched a special switch to the “On” position and at that moment all the traffic lights at the intersection switched to red light mode in order to allow the special vehicle to pass.
The world's first electric traffic light on a road was installed as an experiment. Installation cost US$1,500. Despite the fact that many cities around the world also experimented with various similar traffic lights, the device based on the James Hodge patent had an advantage over all similar inventions. Gradually over the decades, electric remote-controlled traffic lights have become standard throughout the world.
In 1920, Detroit police officer William Potts proposed using yellow traffic lights. Soon after, cities such as New York and Philadelphia began installing traffic lights with three colors of lights. Eventually, traffic lights with signal lights of different colors began to be used throughout the world.
In our country, the first modern traffic light appeared in 1930, in Leningrad at the intersection of 25 October Avenue and Volodarsky Avenue (now Nevsky Avenue and Liteyny Avenue). In Moscow, the first traffic light appeared a little later in the same 1930. It was installed on the corner of Petrovka and Kuznetsky Most streets.
True, the first Soviet traffic lights differed from their foreign counterparts in the location of color signals.
In place of the red light (above), our Domestic traffic light had a green light (there were even traffic lights in which blue light was used instead of green), and instead of green light (below) there was a red one. But after our country acceded to the International Convention on Road Traffic and the International Protocol on Road Signs and Signals, the arrangement of colored signal lights changed to the one generally accepted throughout the world.
Development of roads and traffic
Old Moscow - Moscow today
Petrovsky Gate Square
With the growth of motor transport, all Governments of large countries, in addition to regulating traffic, began to develop a road network that connected large settlements and laid a new foundation for the development of the entire automotive industry. With the development of roads, there was an increase in the speed of transport between cities, which marked a new stage in the development of the economies of states. In our country, unlike Western countries, development proceeded at a slow pace, but, nevertheless, the road network grew along with the increase in motor transport.
In the early 1900s, cars were only available worldwide to the rich. And when a car hit a pedestrian, there was a fuss and even opinions were expressed that the vehicles were “killer cars” that had no place on city streets. If police departments and engineers from many countries had not addressed safety issues and come up with a way to minimize the carnage on the road, then nothing would have changed until now.
Fortunately, specialists managed to ensure that pedestrians and cars do not interfere with each other on the road, create standardization of vehicle traffic flows and, most importantly, create traffic regulation, which reduced the number of serious accidents.
Since the 1920s, cars have become cheaper. The decline in cost has meant that the middle class around the world has been able to afford to own new cars.
This in turn has led to an increase in traffic on roads around the world. Fortunately, along with the growth of vehicles, vehicles began to appear on the road en masse, which began to regulate the flow of road users, reducing the accident rate. As a result, traffic lights have become commonplace in most cities in the world, including ours.
Do you know how old the traffic light is? Almost a hundred! On August 5, 1914, the traffic light was born. On this day, World Traffic Light Day is celebrated, but for the first time this invention appeared to the world much earlier, but as often happens, the first pancake came out lumpy.
In the middle of the century before last, there was complete chaos on the streets of big cities: cargo carts, strollers, horse-drawn carriages, animals, pedestrians and the miracle of technology - cars powered by a steam engine - all moved as they pleased, and often ran into each other. The thorough British were the first to attend to the road issue. And so on December 10, 1868, the main square of London near the building of the English Parliament was “decorated” with a traffic light. This six-meter unattractive structure, which had only a vague resemblance to its modern elegant “great-great-grandson,” was designed by mechanic Knight, an employee of the railway department.
The complex structure was equipped with a pair of semaphore “wings”, which in a horizontal position signaled “stop”, and those located at 45° to the bottom allowed driving. At the top of the iron pole was attached a rotating lantern with gas tubes, which had red glass on one side and green glass on the other. At the base of the post there was a handle for turning the lantern, as well as a belt drive for controlling the semaphore flaps.
A staff member was allocated especially for this “dinosaur” to perform these honorable duties. Despite all the thoroughness, the traffic light lasted only 3 weeks. On January 2, 1869, the gas tubes in the lantern exploded, injuring the policeman on duty. The poor guy died from his injuries in the clinic. The traffic light was removed; no one else wanted to take the risk. And the traffic light issue was also closed in society, for more than half a century.
But of course, the glorious enthusiasts continued technical development alone. And in 1910, the American Ernst Sirrin received a patent and installed the first traffic light in Chicago that worked without human intervention. True, it only functioned during the day because it had no backlight. Two automatically alternating panels read “Stop” and “Prossed.”
In 1912, the first electric traffic light appeared. It was invented by a promising young policeman, Lester Wire, from Salt Lake City. It was a large wooden box that had a sloping roof and two round windows in which glass could be seen - red and green. Inside the “birdhouse” there were two lamps. This structure stood on an impressive pole, along which wires snaked, connecting the light bulbs and the “control panel”, which was located on the ground in a cart. Now, perhaps, this colossus would look ridiculous, but then it functioned quite successfully and aroused admiration.
So we have finally approached the day when, according to experts, a real traffic light was born. This happened on August 5, 1914 in Cleveland. Entrepreneur Garrett Morgan, soon after purchasing a car, having personally experienced all the “delights” of road traffic, used his brains and invented a traffic light. It was similar to a railway signal, the only difference being that each of the two colors now lit up automatically at a certain time interval. Later, Harriet Morgan patented his brainchild, but for some reason he succeeded only in 1923.
Further, the development of traffic lights began to move forward by leaps and bounds. Not far from the installation site, they placed a booth with a policeman monitoring the operation of the traffic light. When changing colors, a sound signal was provided, emitted by a policeman using a whistle. But this was not enough for impatient drivers; they did not want to wait: when approaching a traffic light at a red light, they blew a special horn, and upon hearing the sound, the policeman switched the light to green. For the time being, all this was acceptable, but there were more and more cars, everyone who wanted to play the whistle in their own way, not excluding the policeman sitting at his post. The noise of traffic increased, and the sounds were drowned in the general cacophony, creating chaos. Something had to be done urgently. And in 1918, the traffic light acquired a third “eye” - yellow. First, such a model was installed in New York, then in Detroit, Paris, Hamburg... And our turn came on January 15, 1930, the first Soviet traffic light was installed in Leningrad, and by the end of the year - in Moscow.
To this day, the operating principle of traffic lights has remained virtually unchanged. Naturally, it is constantly being improved and modified. For example, in the original models the top signal was green, but later this place was taken by red. Over time, traffic lights began to be equipped with sound for the blind and a button for pedestrians, giving them the opportunity to independently switch colors. Signal screens began to be made in special color schemes, which are captured by people with visual impairments and color perception problems. That is, of course, traffic lights have generally accepted colors, but orange is added to red, and blue is added to green. Models with a second-by-second countdown are very convenient, so you can navigate when the color changes. Reversible traffic lights have also been created, with an additional moon-white window... And Italian scientists have developed a sensor-based traffic light that will decide when to switch. It is currently being tested.
Traffic lights are quite expensive - one object, depending on the equipment, costs the treasury 30 - 80 thousand dollars. I wonder whether an unlucky resident of the village of Gorokhovka, not far from Bobruisk, who stole a pedestrian traffic light in the hope of selling it or, at worst, exchanging it for booze, imagined such a scale. But either the buyer is now too greedy, or no one in the household needs a traffic light, and soon they caught the thief red-handed at home, now they are “sewing up” a criminal case, you know...
Yes, here's something else! One Russian innovator came up with an idea: a traffic light with four windows: green - go; yellow - get ready; red - stop; bright red - “that’s it, now definitely stop!” Judging by the current situation on our roads, I think the project deserves attention
