The Dunedin City Council will soon switch to ADSL broadband for transmitting messages between the 88 sets of traffic lights in Dunedin and Oamaru and the central signal control system in Dunedin.
The switch to broadband is expected to be completed by the end of the year, at a cost of about $50,000.
New traffic lights at the intersection of Portsmouth Dr and Orari St, in Dunedin, were intended to be the first to be switched to the new technology, but will now begin operating later this month within the existing system, Dunedin City Council roading maintenance engineer Peter Standring said.
The Sydney Co-ordinated Adaptive Traffic System (Scats) which is used in Dunedin communicates with traffic lights through hard-wired telecommunications cables.
The number of cables that can slot into Scats is 80, which means there were eight traffic lights in the city that run set phases, because they cannot be remotely controlled or linked.
The hard-wired technology will eventually become obsolete.
He said council staff had been investigating alternative technologies that allowed more lights and that were more reliable and cheaper.
With ADSL broadband, more lights could be added and the delivery system would be more "future-proof".
A deal was about to be signed with Fusion Broadband to provide the broadband. That would include installing ADSL boxes at each set of lights.
It was not clear at this stage how much the switch would save the council, but in Oamaru, where it cost about $3960 a month to connect six sets of lights to Scats, the cost would drop to about $660 a month.
The lights in Oamaru are operated by the council's Scats system, on behalf of the New Zealand Transport Agency.
