Transit Signal Priority on the ELiMiNATOR^® Platform

Many regions are asked to support emergency vehicle preemption, transit signal priority, and sometimes freight or special event priority. Stand-alone systems for each application can get expensive and difficult to manage.

With the ELiMiNATOR^®, the same in-vehicle radios and intersection cabinet equipment can serve both EVP and TSP. Priority policies and classes handle how each type of vehicle is treated at the signal.

TSP doesn’t need full emergency preemption to be effective. The system supports softer strategies that respect pedestrians and cross-traffic:

• Green extensions when a bus is approaching late in the phase.
• Early green / phase recalls as buses approach stops and time points.
• Route- and direction-specific policies for key corridors.
• Time-of-day and day-of-week logic for peak vs. off-peak service.

Buses and other transit vehicles use the same core GPS / 900 MHz unit used by emergency vehicles. Each vehicle is assigned an ID and class that identifies it as a transit vehicle and, if needed, its route or service type.

• Configurable priority level separate from emergency vehicles.
• Support for different behavior by route, direction, or block.
• Option to integrate with existing on-board systems or CAD/AVL.

Intersection units receive requests from transit vehicles and apply local logic. Because decision logic lives in the cabinet, traffic engineering retains control over how priority is granted:

• Channelization between EVP and TSP requests.
• Custom timing strategies per approach or per intersection.
• Tools to log and review how TSP is being used on each corridor.

Logged events give planners and operations staff insight into how often buses are requesting and receiving priority, and how that aligns with performance metrics like on-time performance or corridor travel times.

• Exportable logs for analysis and grant reporting.
• Visibility into corridor-level behavior over time.
• Ability to refine TSP policies based on real-world data.

Because the ELiMiNATOR^® is radio-based with logic at the intersection, it can span city limits and serve multiple agencies. Transit routes that cross into neighboring jurisdictions can still receive appropriate priority where agreements are in place.