South Africa is one of the few countries in the world that calls traffic lights robots, a colloquialism that dates back to the 1920s.
Back then, traffic at busy intersections were governed by policeman and qualified traffic controllers as no such things as electronic signals existed at the time.
It wasn’t until 1929 when the country saw its first Urban Traffic Control (UTC) system that met the requirements to be called a traffic signal, which was located in Johannesburg, according to Douglas Davey’s A Review Of Selected South African Urban Traffic Control Systems.
As more and more of these UTCs popped up around the country – Durban got its first in 1930 – they started replacing the people that were directing traffic, which created the impression of machines, or robots, taking over human jobs.
They were thus referred to as “robotic traffic controllers” by the nation’s populace of the time, which we can safely assume was truncated to “robots” over the years.
While you’ll also hear the citizens of Namibia and Zimbabwe refer to these fixtures as robots, you’d be hard pressed to find many other countries with this custom.
The evolution, and devolution, of robots
While traffic signaling has grown to dominate South African roads, the poor state of the country’s infrastructure has seen several regions regress back to manual interventions.
In Johannesburg, for example, rampant theft and vandalism of robots means it’s not uncommon for vagrants and homeless people to direct vehicles during peak congestion periods.
Private organisations such as OUTsurance have even set up a Pointsmen Initiative which allows any motorist to request qualified pointsmen to be dispatched to an out-of-service traffic light.
To save costs on replacing damaged and stolen traffic infrastructure, the cities of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni have even gone so far as to convert signalised intersections into stop streets.
In contrast, the City of Cape Town has overcome and adapted to many of these challenges with innovative soutions, whilst continuing to evolve the its UTCs.
For one, it has installed underground chambers with backup power systems to protect valuable traffic signal systems from criminals and vandals whilst keeping them up and running during grid outages.
Additionally, the metro is the first in the country to pilot an all-new traffic light concept with the aim of reducing accidents between public transport operators and private vehicles.
The new style of robots achieved their intended goal, with the number of private vehicles making potentially dangerous movements at the intersections where they were installed sitting at 19% versus 25% at standard intersections.
They are therefore being rolled out to more intersections within the coastal metro, with other South African cities potentially also in the pipeline for these new robots.
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