Every traffic signal the City of Greenville maintains can now sense an approaching fire truck and turn green before it arrives. The Greenville Fire Department has equipped those signals citywide with emergency vehicle preemption devices, technology designed to clear a path through intersections while keeping delays for everyday drivers to a minimum.
The devices work by detecting an emergency vehicle's active lights and sirens, then automatically switching the signal to green in that vehicle's direction of travel, according to WSPA 7News. The system is now active across every traffic signal managed by the city, and crossing traffic is held back while the fire truck passes. “It really controls the traffic from all the other directions better,” one description of the system notes, and once the emergency vehicle clears the intersection, the signal returns immediately to its normal cycle.
Greenville Fire Department crews already reach most calls fast. Grant Wills, a fire specialist at Station 4, said the department can typically be anywhere in its general response areas within about two to five minutes — but traffic congestion still causes delays along the way. The new preemption system is not expected to be a dramatic fix on its own. “So it'll only cut down maybe a minute or two,” Wills said, per the station's report.
Two Years in the Making, Funded by a City Bond
The rollout follows two years of development, according to Greenville Business Magazine, which reported that the preemption technology is now installed inside every city traffic signal cabinet and paired with companion units onboard Greenville City Fire Department apparatus. The project was funded through the city's Neighborhood Infrastructure Bond, the outlet reported, and is meant to help fire engines, rescue trucks and medical-response units reach emergencies faster and more safely.
Clint Link, director of engineering services for the City of Greenville, has said the new traffic-signal system aims to reduce emergency vehicle travel times while improving overall road safety during emergency calls. City leaders separately have framed newer traffic technology investments as a way to ease congestion more broadly, as The Post and Courier has reported on the city's traffic management efforts.
Part of a Broader Regional Push
Greenville is not alone in chasing these gains. In Greenville County, the Parker District Fire Department recently installed a similar preemption system at 37 intersections, and said, per WYFF4, that it was the first department in the county to make such installations.
Farther afield, Augusta's fire department has been preparing to roll out its own emergency vehicle preemption system, designed to reduce crashes and cut response times at a projected cost of about $158,000, according to WJBF. In Roswell, officials have said a citywide version of the technology could reduce emergency response times by up to 20 percent once installed across all 107 of the city's signalized intersections, a project pegged at $773,714, per Roswell Connections.
For Greenville drivers, the practical effect should be subtle rather than disruptive. The system is designed to minimize interruptions for standard traffic, and officials say motorists should not experience prolonged delays as a result of the preemption technology — the goal is simply to get fire engines and medical units through intersections a little faster and a little more safely when seconds count.
