Bringing the Right Technologies Together for Safer Intersections

Traffic intersections are some of the most dangerous points on our roadways, where vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists converge. Red-light running and vehicle-pedestrian conflicts are common causes of crashes, often leading to severe injuries or fatalities. While traditional traffic signal systems help manage flow, they have limitations in proactively preventing incidents, and no single technology can address all the challenges.

This blog is the first in a series exploring how Iteris technologies can work together to help make intersections safer and smarter. In this post, we’ll break down the key components, what they do, and how they work together as an integrated system. In part two, we’ll walk through real-world use cases to show how these technologies respond to specific safety challenges.

What technologies are needed at an intersection?

To effectively manage safety at intersections, multiple technologies must work together:

• Traffic sensors are needed to detect vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians.
• Computation platforms are needed in the traffic signal cabinet and in the cloud to provide both real-time data to make timely decisions as well as asynchronous data to analyze the operations offline.
• Warning systems, located roadside and in vehicles, communicate real-time conditions to both pedestrians and vehicles.

While each of these components plays a role on its own, true impact comes from integrating them into a coordinated system – one that can sense, respond to and inform agencies about dangerous conditions.

Combining hardware and software at the intersection is not a new idea—it’s done all over the nation and all over the world. The key to success is selecting a combination of technologies that work in harmony to cover all critical safety functions.

The tech in our intersection suite of solutions can include many components, including:

Sensor Technologies

Vantage PedSafe® - Pedestrian Safety System

Vantage PedSafe accurately detects pedestrians in crosswalks and curb areas, triggering alerts for drivers and enabling smarter intersection control. Mounted at signalized intersections or midblock crosswalks, it measures round-trip time of a radio wave to track pedestrian movement, unaffected by lighting or weather. It provides detailed speed and direction data to support real-time safety-interventions and longer-term transportation planning.

Vantage Apex® with Vantage Vector® - Multimodal Detection

By fusing radar and video detection, the Vantage Vector sensor and AI-powered Vantage Apex processor deliver highly accurate detection and detailed data on traffic counts, position, and speed.

• Radar provides precise lane-level vehicle tracking
• Video identifies vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians for advanced intersection safety

Red-light running prevention: Given the position and speed of a vehicle on an approach, the Iteris Vantage Apex processor can predict a red-light runner and hold the red clearance until the vehicle clears the intersection—an application that can significantly reduce red-light running crash risk.

AI-Powered VRU Classification and Detection Algorithms

Our AI-powered detection systems accurately identify and classify vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians. This ensures appropriate signal timing and data output, improving safety for all road users at intersections. Iteris AI algorithms detect and classify vehicles and vulnerable road users.

Connected Vehicle Technology

To improve safety ahead of V2X technologies full deployment, we support safety alerts via app-based and V2X communications.

Following the USDOT and Connected Vehicle standards for Traveler Information Messages (TIM), we now provide our well-established International Traveler Information System (ITIS) authoring software to transportation departments and affiliated stakeholders. The graphic above shows the process of identifying incidents and sending messages to nearby connected vehicles.

Our TIM Creator Utility software application allows transportation agencies to send incident messages to BlueTOAD® Spectra CV units and deliver pedestrian in crosswalk and red-light running warnings via V2X communications for vehicles equipped with on-board units (OBUs).

Blank Out Signs

These dynamic signs can display real-time safety messages like “Pedestrian in Crosswalk” when Vantage PedSafe detects pedestrian activity, providing immediate alerts to drivers without onboard units. A pedestrian crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing equipped with Vantage PedSafe and blank out signs.

Adaptive Bollard Lighting

Triggered by pedestrian detection, these illuminated bollards enhance nighttime crosswalk visibility, helping reduce pedestrian crashes by improving driver awareness in low-light conditions. A pedestrian crossing equipped with adaptive bollard lighting.

Transportation Analytics

ClearGuide® Signals

ClearGuide Signals is part of our analytics platform that helps agencies monitor and optimize traffic signal performance. By combining data from signal controllers and Iteris detection sensors, it delivers insights that enhance flow and improve safety.

Our proprietary algorithms use this data to quantify vehicle-VRU conflicts, helping agencies measure and reduce near-misses without the need for additional hardware.

ClearGuide® Safety

ClearGuide Safety analyzes data from Iteris sensors, signal controllers, and third-party sources to identify risk factors like speeding, red-light running, and pedestrian violations. It recommends countermeasures when thresholds are exceeded and applies proprietary algorithms to estimate vehicle-VRU conflicts—supporting data-driven safety improvements and crash reduction efforts. All of the above components can work together as an integrated system to enhance safety and efficiency at intersections.

Smarter Together: Integrated Intersection Safety Solution

All these components are designed to work together as one cohesive system.

• Vantage PedSafe detects pedestrians in real time and triggers safety devices like adaptive bollard lighting and blank out signs.
• Vantage Vector and Vantage Apex provide precise vehicle tracking and multimodal classification, supporting optimized traffic signal timing.
• In-cabinet processors and roadside units (RSUs) enable connectivity and data processing.
• When RSUs and OBUs are present, our intersection safety solution can deliver real-time safety alerts directly to connected vehicles.

All intersection data—vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle activity—is sent to the cloud, where it’s visualized and analyzed in ClearGuide, enabling agencies to monitor performance, identify conflicts, and measure progress toward safer, smarter intersections.

To learn more, contact us today—and don't miss part two of this series, where we dive into how the above tech works together in various real-life scenarios.