Priority of Commercial Trucks Within Coordinated Signalling

The PRINT project seeks to permit a more green traffic flow in urban areas through reducing pollution from commercial trucks by giving priority and thereby reduce the numbers of stop and starts. The green ITS solution is based upon existing technology like detection, tracking and priority hierarchy within traffic light signalling. The adaptation and utilization to aid commercial trucks are however a new concept, that shows substantial potential with regards to reducing emissions and fuel consumptions. The next step in a proposed Norwegian development is to allow commercial trucks in priority lanes in urban areas instead of lining them up in queues. Signal priority and priority lanes combined are to be investigated in the PRINT project. An extension with a total concept embracing both priority as well as management may be the supreme solution to utilize green ITS and reducing emissions and fuel consumptions. This paper reports the results from PRINT Demonstrator 1 – Priority of commercial trucks within coordinated signalling. SINTEF has equipped ten trucks from Posten, Norway with onboard equipment identifying position and communicating with the overall management system for traffic light signalling. By requesting priority when passing virtual loops the commercial trucks can benefit from a smoother path through the area. The priority of commercial trucks is subordinated priority of bus and trams in the demonstrator.