"The Use Of Vehicular Countdown Traffic Signal In General Santos City — A Feasibilty Study"

Signal control systems are intended to regulate traffic passing through intersections safely and efficiently. Though conventional signal systems play an important role in controlling traffic flow, significant loss of time is still experienced and hence capacity re¬duction at the transition points. Measures to reduce congestions and violations such as red light running are introduced as an additional tool to facilitate motorist's compliance with the traffic signal. In General Santos City, reports and sightings of red light running has been noted. VCTS is one of the tools used by other cities in the Philippines to combat red light jumping and improve road safety in intersections. SWOT analysis is used in this study to evaluate the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the countdown timer. It is found that more advantages can be achieved in installing VCTS in General Santos City and it will help improve driver's behavior towards an intersection. Yet large capital investment is needed in implementation and the device increases the travel time due to its fixed-time signals installed and thereby decreases the capacity of the road to cater motorists at the same time. Result of PEST analysis indicated that gensan is politically, socially, economically and technologically feasible to implement vehicular countdown traffic signal. With all the data gathered, it is found that VCTS can be fully implemented in gensan right now due to its compatibility to traffic control system; even so, trial run can be conducted in order to evaluate its impact and effectiveness.