Energy Savings
With the prices of fossil fuels on the rise as well as pollution, the world has been forced to seek energy saving solutions to soaring costs, and environmental quality. With the technology of light emitting diodes cities across the country have found a way to reduce the energy costs by replacing old incandescent light bulbs with light emitting diodes in traffic signals. There are about 260,000 intersections with traffic signals in the United States. It has been estimated that if all these intersections had LEDs in the traffic signals, over three billion kilowatt hours of electricity could be saved yearly. The average price of a kilowatt hour is about four cents, so that would be a savings of about 120 million dollars a year in energy consumption. The potential savings has prompted many cities to pursue energy savings contracts in order upgrade there traffic signals.

Safety & Reliability

Not only do LEDs provide energy savings, they also work longer without failing. The typical LED will last from five to ten years, where the incandescent light bulb burns out a least once a year. This greatly reduces cities’ maintenance schedules as well as cutting the cost of replacing incandescent bulbs. This increases the safety of the traffic signals, and reduces the number of accidents due to traffic signals being out of commission.

The reliability which LEDs have is due to there design, which implements semiconductor technology. This means that semiconductor material is used to emit light, and there are no flimsy filaments to fail, as in incandescent bulbs. Also the LED traffic signals are implemented with many LEDs, so if one of the LEDs fails within the unit, the unit still works. No only is the LED longer lasting and more efficient it also focuses the light better, making the traffic signal easier to see for on coming traffic. This helps reduce accidents, because drivers are able to see the signal better.