If they remove timers from lights entirely, they better improve the sensors. There are already numerous lights that do not detect the presence of my motorcycle.
When I used to ride a bicycle, I would lay my bike down in the sensor ring that opened my apartment complex's gate. Simply riding over it wouldn't work.
Seriously, anything except a pedestrian should trigger the sensors. Car, motorcycle, bicycle, wheelchair, or a freight train from your subconscious trying to crush everything in its path... whatever it is, if it's sitting in front of an intersection and it's not on the sidewalk, chances are it's waiting for the green light!
Sure, you might get a false positive from time to time, but whatever causes the false positive probably shouldn't be in the car lane in the first place.
With sensitivities that low false positives are triggered by cars in other lanes. Induction loops are very sensitive to variations. Believe me, I spent many hours on tweaking detectors.
it seems as though in this case they're trying to detect 'platoons' or waves of traffic, so if you're traveling along in the vicinity of some cars, they can be detected, and you can still benefit.
Of course; that's how it is now. Car rolls up behind you and you're fine.
The problem is when you're alone and there are no other cars in your lane. If you're totally alone, you can run the red light, if there is other traffic just not in your lane you're screwed.
