What are the Advantages of LED Traffic Lights?
The next time you stop at an intersection, take a closer look at the glowing red light. If it looks like a honeycomb of bright red dots, you are enjoying an example of LED traffic lights. Cities around the world have been systematically replacing their older incandescent bulb-based traffic signals with the more energy efficient LED traffic lights since the mid-1990s. LED traffic lights have several advantages over incandescent models, but the three main advantages are improved visibility, longer shelf life and lower energy costs. The development of commercially feasible LED traffic lights was originally hampered by the limitation of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDS). LEDs generate light as a result of electrical current running through certain gases. At first, LEDs could only produce the color red, which limited their use to monochromatic devices such as alarm clock displays or calculators. Further refinements in LED technology have now produced the three colors used for traffic signalling
