- April 22, 2025
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Commissioner George Kruse has complained that he always gets stuck at red lights when driving around Manatee County.
“I can’t get through a green light to save my life,” he said.
However, when it comes to actual life saving, Manatee County has been looking into technology to assure ambulances travel through green lights with ease.
Commissioners approved a pilot program in 2023 that clears traffic for oncoming emergency vehicles. The program was launched in June 2024.
On average, the traffic management system saves 11 seconds of travel time at each signalized intersection.
In June, commissioners were told the program would operate for about six months before a final decision would be made to either discontinue the program or expand it countywide.
Now that time has come and gone, James Crutchfield, deputy director of Manatee County Public Safety, said the goal is to equip every traffic signal in Manatee County with the technology. Now it's up to commissioners to approve the funds.
While 11 seconds may not seem like a lot of time, Crutchfield said those seconds add up when responding to time-sensitive emergencies, such as cardiac arrest, respiratory issues and traumatic injuries.
A 2020 study in the “Journal of the American Heart Association” reported that “shortening EMS response times is likely to be a fast and effective way of increasing survival in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.”
A 2019 UCLA study found that initiating stroke treatment 15 minutes earlier can save lives and prevent disabilities.
Manatee County’s emergency call center averages about 1,500 calls a day. The average EMS response time is just over 8 minutes, but the patient then needs to be loaded into the ambulance and transported to the hospital.
To get started with testing the technology, staff identified 24 traffic lights along U.S. 41, U.S. 301 and State Road 64 that were deemed severely congested. The common thread between those three corridors is that they all lead to Manatee Memorial Hospital.
By June, light control boxes were installed at the 24 intersections, along with activation devices inside of 10 Emergency Medical Services vehicles — eight ambulances and two supervisor vehicles.
The pilot program cost $300,000. The average cost to equip each intersection is $10,000.
“This system gives emergency responders control over traffic flow,” Crutchfield said. “Once activated, it creates a dedicated green light corridor along the ambulance’s route, helping to clear traffic ahead of the vehicle.”
Once the ambulance driver triggers the system, the equipment in the ambulance starts communicating with the light control boxes using GPS, cellular networks and radio communication.
Both cellular and radio communication are used, so the system stays operational even where there’s a network interruption.
Unlike non-emergency adaptive signal systems that use presets and algorithms to time green lights according to traffic patterns, the EMS priority system adapts in real time.
The control box detects the emergency vehicle as it approaches, and then switches the light to green.
Clearing traffic ahead of time serves the main purpose of picking up and delivering the patient faster, but it also lessens the risk of collisions with pedestrians and motorists in the intersection.
Once the emergency vehicle has passed, the system quickly reverts back to the normal traffic pattern to minimize any disruptions and keep traffic flowing.
Crutchfield said additional signals will be added as funding becomes available. Eventually, the equipment will be installed at every traffic signal in Manatee County.
Public Works Director Chad Butzow said that at some point fire rescue may also be given the same priority as EMS, but a hierarchy will have to be established first in the event that two emergency vehicles are approaching the same intersection.
The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office is not even being considered as a priority option because of the havoc such a large fleet could have on regular traffic.
“(Officers) are going every which way,” Butzow said. “The signals would probably never be in normal operation.”
