Pedestrian countdown technology to be rolled out across capital

Hundreds more pedestrian countdown timers will be installed across London over the next year.

The number of timers across London will be doubled by summer 2016, with the Mayor of London Boris Johnson setting a target of upgrading 400 crossings – 10% of all those in London – with the technology by April 2016.

This technology replaces the ‘blackout’ period on traffic signals with a numerical counter to show how long pedestrians have left to safely cross the road. This target has already been surpassed with more than 430 sites currently upgraded.

TfL has now stretched the target by a further 400 sites – meaning that 800 crossings, or around 20% of all pedestrian crossings in London, will have pedestrian countdown by summer 2016.

Mr Johnson said: “Ensuring that London’s streets are safe for all road users, including pedestrians, is a top priority. The statistics show that we’re heading in the right direction, but we’ve got to do more to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads.

“TfL’s commitment to extend pedestrian countdown is good news and means that 800 crossings across the capital will have them in place by next summer. This is part of the action we’re taking on a number of other fronts, including significant improvements to major road junctions and working closely with London’s boroughs to ensure that roads with high footfall are even safer to use.”