End of the road for traffic light top caps in NSW?

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Vincent

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Jul 22, 2022, 11:45:27 PM7/22/22
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Hi everyone,

In trawling the more recent Streetview imagery around NSW, I'm noticing an increasing number of intersections using square poles exclusively for all traffic signals, not just overhead signals as was previously the case. 

The square poles don't have top caps at all - examples include here, at the intersection of Lake Entrance Road & Warilla Road, Shellharbour - https://goo.gl/maps/LfecimcRJidR1KDp7, and here, at the intersection of Springhill Road & Five Islands Road, Cringilla - https://goo.gl/maps/BgsmC5UnbDFw7XN6A.

Have the design standards changed recently? I did have a look a little while ago but couldn't find anything definitive. If standards have changed, I guess we'll be spotting remnant round poles in the same way we clock relic yellow and green poles now :)

Cheers,
Vincent.

davis

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Jul 23, 2022, 2:18:25 AM7/23/22
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Why were those intersections' signals reconstructed? 

They're definitely still using round poles in rewires/refits to add turn signals for pedestrian safety in Sydney. You can also see plenty of round poles in new installs on the Northern Road upgrade with similar ages of installs and Street View. 

Want to go check the list chronologically? https://opendata.transport.nsw.gov.au/dataset/traffic-lights-location Though it is a year out of date at this point.

Paul Rands

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Jul 23, 2022, 5:50:32 AM7/23/22
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They have appeared on low voltage installations in the ACT as well. That said, they've also done normal poles with dark blue finial caps for low voltage as well

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Vincent Muller

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Jul 23, 2022, 6:56:25 PM7/23/22
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From what I can tell, the Lake Entrance Road/Shellharbour Road intersection was redone to remove the short pole in the left turn slip lane. Springhill Road & Five Island Road was redone when the overhead signal was installed.

I've also seen installs from the past 2-3 years with round poles - the Great Western Highway/Bayonet Street/Ninda Place intersection in Lithgow comes to mind. I'll go through the full list if I ever have enough free time, but if it's a choice between using round and square poles at any given intersection, I wonder what the criteria is?

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Michael Faria

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Nov 17, 2025, 4:52:39 AM (11 days ago) Nov 17
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Reopening the traffic light discussion here.
The Hexham works seem to have the larger lanterns (300 mm?) on the approach side of the intersections and the normal size lanterns (200 mm?) on the far side. 

Both the Aldridge and Braums catalogues have the new lights which have a single light source rather than simply a diffuser lens over the same dot pattern as I thought might have been the case with the new lights. Aldridge still has the dot pattern lights listed. I find it interesting that the amber lights have a significantly higher listed power consumption and the dot pattern ones have denser dots. I'm definitely a fan of the new dot-less lights.

Vincent Muller

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Nov 17, 2025, 1:26:34 PM (10 days ago) Nov 17
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Haha, I'm like a dog with a bone with this 😝

The catalogues are very interesting, thanks for sharing. I think it's especially noteworthy how little power the CLS signals use in comparison to the LEDs - almost two-thirds less for the 300mm. The incandescents must have been absolutely sucking the power down back in the day.

Michael Faria

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Nov 18, 2025, 12:34:25 AM (10 days ago) Nov 18
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Yeah the programme of replacing the old ones with the much cheaper to run LEDs was very thorough, which was very sensible but unfortunate that all the vintage lanterns went.

I saw a set of lights on a two-phase four-way intersection that had been replaced and now included red arrows to protect pedestrians but it was still using the delayed green instead of the red arrows, so I assume some modification of the controller was still necessary.

Did NSW ever use 300 mm lights before just recently?
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