Sacramento city, in the US state of California, has started upgrading six corridors in the region, with new technology to coordinate traffic signals.

The six corridors will include 74 signalised intersections along 22 miles.

The upgrades, which will cost $4.2m, include new signal timing equipment, signal controllers, new fibre-optic communication components such as video detection and closed circuit television cameras.

Sacramento City’s Traffic Engineer Hector Barron said: “These six corridors carry a significant amount of traffic within the City of Sacramento and are an important part of the city’s transportation system.”

“Upgrading these routes with technology to better coordinate traffic signals will improve safety, lessen travel times and ultimately reduce green house gas emissions,” said Barron.

The technology captures and transmits live traffic data to the city’s traffic operations centre to monitor traffic and change traffic signal timing remotely to continuously coordinate the traffic signals.

The signal coordination project, to be completed by 2011, is expected to improve safety, reduce travel times and lessen green house gas emissions.

Around $2.8m has been provided from state bond funds, $1m from federal funds and $350,000 from local funds to finance the project.