said by djrobx :

Yeah, here in Valencia there are utility cabinets galore around town. The U-verse cabinets are dwarfed by the massive cabinets used to run traffic stoplights. They kind of blend in.

At least with U-verse, I understand that they need to cram a lot of DSLAMs into a small space. Why such a massive cabinet is required to control the on/off states of a few lamps is beyond me.

-- Rob

said by bogey780 :

Uhhh..it has nothing to do with age.

In order to keep flow optimized there's various sensors running back and forth giving information to a computer that figures out who is waiting for clearance. It then figures that into the time of day and sets the rotation for the whole intersection. It could be made smaller and more demure but there's no bother since intersections are seldom pretty.

said by en102 :

Again... these can be built on fairly simple / small devices - even with timers, sensors (including left turn, pedestrian, time of day) can be built onto a single chip. Add in commercial grade, and you're typically talking a single card.

Some newer ones (here in Los Angeles county anyways) are also tied into a 'grid' system. LADPW have a system (not sure the extent covered), where there's a system control center which can change the light schedules based on traffic flow (i.e. for diverting traffic during accidents).

Even with all that... they're still huge, especially in comparison to a VRAD.

said by phattieg :

Uhh, that comment was not well thought out. Considering the iPhone can detect if it's horizontal or vertical, or the smartphones running windows are as thin as a Moto Razr while closed.

The point is, the equipment is bulky because nobody has bothered to try and "downsize" it. They have kept the same, proprietary devices since automated traffic lights were invented. The wires from the sensors aren't the size as a cabinet. Could you please tell me a justifiable reason they are so huge? Realistically, there is no reason for them to be so large. I could see if they were HALF the size they are now, and that consideration is being made with the assumption that there is battery backups in them. They make devices now that handle phone, internet, and TV, and are as big as a classic VCR. They take input and deliver output back to the headend, which constitutes similar functionality as a traffic light controller. If they embed all the devices in one of those cabinets into a single controller that does it all, they can go from 5 ft tall, down to a few inches tall. For crying out loud, we are fitting 4 cpu cores on a chip that is smaller than a standard playing card. Please tell me the need for them to continiue using controllers from the 1980's. It's not like they have a network of 100 phone line PAIRS coming into the cabinet on a traffic light, so I can see why a VDSL cabinet is so large.

Again, I realize the traffic light controllers take input from pressure sensors, and also calculate the time of day, and the load of traffic, but it does not excuse their size. It would be like us still using a UNIVAC computer, which takes up the space of a three story building, just to run the internet. It isn't happening, so why should traffic lights be any different. At least if they were smaller, they could be buried underground, away from the potential of being smacked into by a drunk driver.

So, it has EVERYTHING to do with age, because each year, new technology gets smaller and smaller. Hell, even the iPod is 1/4 the size it use to be, and is capable of doing way more than a traffic light controller. And what you are talking about, as far as "optimized sensors" and time of day, etc, I have configured very similar stuff on my VoIP box. That could all be reduced to a single chip...

A simple solution to your argument would be to post a link to "how it works" so we can see the point of this huge ass box that makes traffic lights work. The cable company has a node that turns fiber optic into coax, and is responsible for 100+ VoIP customers, 300+ modems, and only god knows how many TV customers, and it is the size of a car amplifier, so please, enlighten me.

This message may come across as "offensive" so forgive me, but you need to explain some of this logic, as I fail to imagine any other reason as to why you said it was acceptable. Sorry.

said by phattieg :

It's a joke, and a rip-off...