Aging traffic lights pose a quandary to police across Japan, with many thousands needing to be replaced or repaired, and some even posing a public safety threat.

Currently, there are about 210,000 traffic lights nationwide, with a quarter of these having passed their useful life period.

Traffic lights have been removed in areas of heavy depopulation and decreases in traffic volume, such as when schools have closed. 

Plans are to remove about another 4,300, but agreements with local residents for their removal are often challenging.

The number of traffic lights across Japan increased rapidly as the number of vehicles increased.

According to the National Police Agency, there were only about 20,000 traffic lights nationwide in 1970, when the number of fatal accidents hit 15,801, the highest on record.

Meanwhile, as of the end of March 2024, there were about 210,000 traffic lights, with Tokyo having the most, 16,030, and Tottori having the fewest, 1,303.

Aging traffic lights are one of the issues facing police. The useful life of traffic lights is estimated to be 19 years.

It costs about 1.3 million yen ($8,400) to repair each unit, in addition to maintenance and other upkeep costs. As of the end of March 2024, about 50,000 traffic lights needed repairs.

There have been 17 accidents where traffic light poles collapsed due to deterioration and other factors over the 10 years up to 2023. In 2021, a traffic light pole fell in Suzuka, Mie Prefecture.

In that instance, the bottom part of the pole had been corroded and broke apart, indicating that dog urine may have factored into the collapse. In July 2024, another traffic light pole collapsed in Shizuoka, due to corrosion from rainwater.

DECISIONS BASED ON TRAFFIC VOLUME

To use their budgets efficiently, police departments nationwide are proceeding with the removal of traffic lights while repairing those still usable.

The NPA surveyed the target number of traffic lights to be removed by prefectural police departments over the five years from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2028.

As a result, excluding the three prefectural police departments that have not yet set a target, a total of 4,299 units, or about 2 percent of the overall number of existing traffic lights, were designated for removal. 

The percentage of those targeted for removal in Wakayama and Tokushima prefectures was the highest, at about 10 percent of the existing traffic lights in both prefectures.

The NPA’s guidelines set the conditions for installing traffic lights. These five conditions include “traffic volume per hour is 300 vehicles or more” and “the distance between traffic lights and its adjacent one is 150 meters or more.”

Additionally, one of the following conditions must also be met, such as “elementary or junior high schools or hospitals exist nearby,” or “there must be at least two accidents per year resulting in injury or death, and no measures other than traffic lights can be taken.”

If the conditions no longer apply, police consider their removal. According to the NPA, the specific removal location is determined comprehensively from various perspectives, such as when traffic would flow smoother without the traffic lights or when safety can be ensured without them.

RESIDENTS OPPOSE REMOVALS

There have been locations where residents have opposed removing traffic lights.

“It is necessary for each police department to obtain the understanding of local residents before proceeding with the removal,” a senior official of the NPA said.

On a one-lane prefectural road in the Kami-Oshima district of Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, in mid-November last year, cars and motorcycles sped through at the rate of about one every three seconds.

This is the location where the removal of a push-button traffic light was temporarily considered.

A woman in her 40s, whose daughter used to commute to school there, said, “The traffic is so heavy and dangerous that we can’t cross without a traffic light.”

According to the prefectural police, the traffic light was considered for removal in 2018 when the nearby elementary school closed and the number of users decreased.

However, when the police explained about removing the light to residents, residents opposed the plan.

The residents said because many elderly pedestrians used the crossing, it would be dangerous without the traffic light. So, it was decided that the traffic light would remain there.

There are other locations where traffic lights were removed with the agreement of residents. In Hokkaido, 19 traffic lights were removed during 2023. One of these was a push-button traffic light in front of the former Akama Elementary School in Akabira.

It was removed in December because the school had closed the previous year and traffic on the road in front of the school had decreased. The traffic light was used by only a few people other than schoolchildren, and the residents did not voice any opposition to its removal.

On the other hand, there are cases where traffic lights were not installed even though local residents requested them.

In September 2024, three people were killed in a collision between two cars at an intersection in  Rokunohe in Aomori Prefecture. There was no traffic light installed at the intersection and nine accidents occurred there over the five years through 2023.

According to the Aomori prefectural police, the traffic volume at the intersection does not meet one of the required conditions for installing traffic lights.

The police also said that it is safer to install stop signs instead of installing a traffic light. The intersection lacks a traffic light even now.

The police explained that traffic crackdowns at the site were bolstered and increased stop signs put in place since the accident occurred in September 2024.

A total of 2,212 traffic lights were newly installed nationwide over the five years through fiscal 2023, indicating that compared to the number of traffic lights being removed, only about 60 percent were newly put in place. 

(This article was written by Daichi Itakura and Yuka Suzuki.)