Lexington’s $7.4 million system to manage traffic is now fully installed.

After nearly six years, the town of Lexington has fully put in place a computerized adaptive control system that uses 180 cameras connected to Town Hall to help ease congestion.

Mayor Steve MacDougall said this new infrastructure was affordable for the town, calling it “a no-brainer for us to pick this technology.”

“When we first went after it, we were in the beginning stages of really growing the town,” MacDougall said. “We needed to make some decisions about road improvements that the county was not doing, the state was not doing and the federal government was not doing.”

The mayor told the Chronicle that the system works by using the cameras at various intersections to survey traffic. The system counts the number of cars and uses that date to determine when to turn lights red or green, coordinating the decisions it makes across the 47 intersections it controls to hopefully create the smoothest route for traffic.

The control system governs many intersections along U.S. Highway 378, spanning from Hummingbird Dr. in West Columbia to Barr Road in Lexington. The rest of the intersections are all contained within the Town of Lexington, including intersections along U.S. Highway 1, North and South Lake Drive and downtown intersections involving East and West Main Street, Maiden Lane and Church Street.

“It benefits the town in a number of different ways,” MacDougall said. “But the major portion that really helps the town of Lexington is to mitigate traffic and mitigate congestion. So it's working 24 hours a day seven days a week to keep traffic flowing through town.”

According to MacDougall the town saw a 25% increase in traffic flow on its first day of operation and continues to see growth, adding that the system itself is always getting better.

Council Member Todd Carnes shared that he has heard residents of the town mentioning the traffic flow feeling faster, which he told the Chronicle is the goal of the entire project.

The system also helps emergency vehicles, which are equipped with a button inside that allows them to change the lights. The town’s road engineer also has an app on his phone that allows him to manually change lights.

MacDougall said this is helpful for major accidents to which the system may not have adjusted to yet.

The system, called InSync, will continue to need upgrades, like most computer systems, and the town has hired full-time technicians so that if something happens to the system it can be resolved in a timely manner.

InSync isn’t the only system the town is using to help ease traffic. Lexington also uses Blue Toad software to track how quickly people are able to move through town through their phones.

Using this information, InSync will start to see where there is an extended length of travel tine and begin making adjustments.

With 180 cameras running non-stop that creates a bunch of information, so any video footage is only saved for 72 hours. MacDougall added that there isn’t really a reason to keep it longer and that storing it would become very costly.

To get these cameras and fiber optic cables installed MacDougall said the town worked with the state Department of Transportation, Lexington County, and the state, adding that some of the intersections around Town Hall were already equipped with fiber optic cables.

“It’s of great importance to Lexington because Lexington has so much going for it, but the rapid growth has definitely brought traffic congestion.” Carnes said. “This has been a top priority for the entire council and mayor for multiple years now and we're excited to be one of the only municipalities to be able to fully implement the system."