About

Peter G. Furth is a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University. His research focuses on bicycle transportation, traffic signal control including transit priority, and urban street design. He is a leading researcher in bicycle network analysis, having invented the 'Level of Traffic Stress' criteria and methods for evaluating low-stress bike accessibility, and continues to develop new frontiers in bike network analysis. Additionally, he is a prominent thinker in traffic signal control, developing innovative techniques and algorithms to improve transit priority, enhance safety for pedestrians and bicycles, and reduce speeding opportunities through signal timing strategies. Furth has pioneered the concept of 'speeding opportunities,' demonstrating how traditional signal timing methods can incentivize speeding and how alternative approaches can significantly lower these opportunities while maintaining effective service. His work has contributed to safer, more accessible urban transportation systems, and he has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2023 Best Paper Award from the Committee on Traffic Signal Systems and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Pedestrian & Bicycle Professionals in 2020.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Business
• Data Mining
• Data science
• Geography
• Psychology
• Engineering
• Transport engineering

Selected publications

• Enhancing Urban Mobility: A Road Diet Approach to Improve Traffic Capacity and Pedestrian Safety

  Transactions on Transport Sciences · 2026-02-23

  articleOpen access

  Urban intersections often face the dual challenge of managing high traffic volumes while ensuring pedestrian safety. This study investigates whether road diet strategies—reducing travel lanes while reallocating space for pedestrians—combined with signal timing optimization, can improve both vehicle throughput and safety at complex urban intersections. The North Washington Street corridor in Boston, including City Square and Keany Square, was selected due to its congestion and long pedestrian crossing distances. Data were collected via sensors and manual counts in December 2022. Microscopic simulations were conducted in PTV Vissim, calibrated to field observations within ±5% accuracy. The intervention included lane reductions, a new northbound receiving lane, pedestrian refuge islands, split crossings, and revised signal timing using VisVAP. Results show average vehicle delays decreased from 171.97 to 31.12 veh-s at City Square and from 146.60 to 64.88 veh-s at Keany Square. Queue lengths dropped by over 50%, and intersection capacities rose by 34.59% and 24.98% respectively. Pedestrian exposure times were cut significantly, particularly at long crossings. These findings challenge conventional assumptions about road diets limiting capacity. Instead, the combined approach fostered safer and more efficient intersections, suggesting that balanced urban mobility can be achieved through thoughtful design. The study provides a replicable model for cities pursuing Vision Zero and sustainable mobility goals.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Short Right-Turn Lanes and Auxiliary Through Lanes: Intersection Capacity, Signal Timing, and Negative Lost Time

  Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board · 2026-04-08

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Some intersection approaches have right-turn lanes and/or auxiliary through lanes that are short in the sense that during the queuing process, entry to these lanes can be blocked by the queue in the adjacent continuous lane, limiting their capacity contribution. Conventional capacity and signal timing methods typically treat these lanes as full additional lanes, which can result in large errors in estimates of capacity and delay. This paper develops a consistent method for capacity analysis, signal timing design, and delay estimation at signalized intersections with short added right-turn and auxiliary through lanes. Short lanes are modeled as providing “bonus flow” per cycle, equal to their functional storage capacity, rather than a contribution to saturation flow rate. In analysis, this bonus flow is represented as negative lost time—a head start equivalent, allowing the proposed model to be implemented in conventional analysis with minor modifications. This study shows that with short added lanes, capacity per hour does not increase with cycle length as much as conventional methods predict, because the benefit of fewer switches per hour is offset by fewer green starts, thus less bonus flow. It is also possible for an intersection’s sum of critical lost time to be negative, in which case there is a unique cycle length that maximizes capacity—a short cycle with a red interval just long enough to replenish the short lane. Intersection-level capacity and saturation flow rate measures are proposed. Reservice is demonstrated to be a promising strategy, offering a capacity gain of 21% in one example.

  PublisherDOI

• TSP-Friendly Underlying Traffic Signal Control, An Essential Complement of Transit Signal Priority

  Preprints.org · 2025-08-19 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In principle, transit signal priority (TSP) should be able to reduce bus delay to near zero; however, in U.S. practice, bus delay reductions from TSP are often meager. This may be because in the U.S., active TSP (green extension and early green) is often applied within an underlying traffic signal control framework that is not TSP-friendly. TSP-friendly signal control encompasses passive transit signal priority techniques that minimize the bus phase red as well as control logic that provides flexibility in shifting the bus phase’s green to match the bus arrival time and compensation mechanisms for phases with overflow queues caused by priority actions, which is necessary to have aggressive active priority settings. Practically, TSP-friendly signal control is defined in this study as (1) control logic that is either fully actuated or coordinated to bus trajectories, and (2) phasing and timing plans that avoid long red intervals for the bus phase by (a) minimizing the cycle length, (b) allowing phase rotation, and (c) including multiple bus phases within the cycle, where the bus movement is a left turn or queue jump. Simulation tests at four sites in Boston find that applying active TSP together with TSP-friendly underlying control reduces bus delay 2.0 to 3.1 times as much as applying active TSP is applied on top of existing traffic signal control, with bus delay falling below 5 s per intersection at two of the sites and below 9 s per intersection at the other two sites.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Next-Generation Transit Signal Priority with Advanced Arrival Time Prediction and Custom Traffic Signal Control Logic

  Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board · 2025-06-18 · 4 citations

  article

  Transit signal priority (TSP) is a signal timing strategy to give priority to transit by adjusting the signal operation with the goal of reducing transit delay and improving reliability. While TSP can be a powerful tool, TSP deployments in the U.S. have often resulted in marginal improvements. The primary reasons for limited TSP effectiveness are short detection horizons for TSP requests (e.g., 10 s), near-side bus stops (i.e., located before crossing an intersection) that influence arrival times at the downstream traffic signal, and restrictive signal timing strategies (e.g., lock-out policies that inhibit TSP for a specified amount of time, coordinated control that offers little flexibility for TSP). This paper documents the impacts of a “next-generation” TSP system that couples with custom signal control logic for TSP through a field deployment in Portland, Oregon, U.S., using emerging data sources. The system uses cloud-based, predictive logic for estimating time of arrival, with predictions of bus arrivals available up to 2 min ahead of each intersection and updated continuously every 1 s. The custom signal control logic includes advanced TSP strategies that can take advantage of early prediction. Using data from high-resolution automatic vehicle location, analysis results show the custom signal controller logic with advanced prediction resulted in an average bus delay reduction of 29 s per intersection at major intersections (a reduction of 69% compared with baseline). Analyses using automated traffic signal performance measures and vehicle probe data showed these bus delay improvements were achieved with marginal impacts on motorists and without additional delay to pedestrians and bicycles.

  PublisherDOI

• Reducing Speeding by Removing Speeding Opportunities: Field Test of Safe Waves Traffic Signal Timing

  Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board · 2025-08-20

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The Safe Waves approach to arterial traffic signal timing aims to eliminate, as much as possible, opportunities to speed while still providing good two-way progression for arterial traffic, through measures that include a short cycle length, short coordination zones, a low progression speed, and pedestrian recall (a traffic signal timing function that causes a pedestrian phase to automatically activate every cycle) except where pedestrian demand is very low. Simulation-based studies have shown Safe Waves signal timing can substantially reduce speeding opportunities with little or no increase in arterial delay. Speeding opportunities are defined as the number of events in which a vehicle enters an intersection on a “stale” green—a signal already green as the driver approaches—with no vehicle ahead of it for at least 5 s. However, only field studies can confirm whether timing traffic signals this way will actually lead to less speeding. A before-after field test compared existing signal timing plans with Safe Waves signal timing plans for a stretch of Route 114 in Danvers, MA, U.S., a suburban, 4-lane arterial with six signalized intersections and a 40 mph speed limit. With Safe Waves, the number of vehicles exceeding the speed limit fell by 74% as speeding opportunities fell by 51%. At the same time, average arterial delay increased by only 1.8 s per intersection, and average pedestrian delay crossing the arterial fell by 18 s, or 33%. Signal timing techniques that proved valuable in reducing speeding opportunities included using 30 min peak hour factors and, for phases that serve an infrequently used concurrent pedestrian crossing, programming the phase for less time than needed to serve the pedestrian crossing, a technique sometimes called “oversized ped.”

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• TSP-Friendly Underlying Traffic Signal Control: An Essential Complement to Transit Signal Priority

  Future Transportation · 2025-11-03 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In principle, transit signal priority (TSP) should be able to reduce bus delays to near zero; however, in U.S. practice, bus delay reductions from TSP are often meager. This may be because, in the U.S., active TSP (green extension and early green) is often applied within an underlying traffic signal control framework that is not TSP-friendly. TSP-friendly signal control means control that minimizes the bus phase’s scheduled red period, offers flexibility to shift the bus phase’s green to match the bus arrival time, and includes compensation mechanisms that allow phases interrupted by priority actions to quickly recover, which in turn allows TSP to be more aggressive. Simulation tests at four sites in Boston find that applying active TSP together with TSP-friendly underlying control reduces bus delay 2 to 3 times as much as applying active TSP on top of existing traffic signal control without negatively impacting other vehicles or pedestrians. Aspects of TSP-friendly signal control demonstrated in the case studies include fully actuated control, reservice for minor bus phases, coordination that follows bus trajectories, phase rotation, and coordination following bus trajectories.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Reducing Speeding Opportunities on an Urban Arterial Using Short Coordination Zones

  Journal of Transportation Engineering Part A Systems · 2024-04-17 · 2 citations

  article1st author

  Timing traffic signals using coordination zones of one to three signalized intersections was tested as an approach for reducing speeding opportunities on urban arterials. Short coordination zones can reduce speeding opportunities because they allow cycle length to be shorter at most intersections, with less excess arterial green time during which vehicles can pass through unconstrained; they also avoid the outcome, common to long coordination zones, of having large clusters of intersections with simultaneous green, which create an incentive to speed. In a case study of Boston’s Huntington Avenue performed using microsimulation, existing coordinated control over a stretch of nine intersections was compared with control short coordination zones with one to three intersections per zone, with each zone’s cycle length tailored to the needs of its intersections. Speeding opportunities per hour—defined as the number of vehicles entering an intersection on a stale green and with no vehicle ahead of them for at least 5 s–fell by 46%–51% midday and by 24%–33% in the AM peak, depending on the base of comparison, while vehicle delay was unchanged in the AM peak and increased by only 9% midday, and average pedestrian delay crossing the arterial fell substantially.

  PublisherDOI

• Head Start in Time or in Space? Determining Needed Leading Pedestrian Interval Length as a Function of Intersection Layout

  Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board · 2023-02-09 · 3 citations

  articleSenior author

  Where signalized pedestrian crossings run concurrently with vehicles, the permitted conflict between right-turning vehicles and pedestrians can be mitigated by giving pedestrians a head start. With a head start, pedestrians can establish themselves in the crosswalk before right-turning traffic can get there, reinforcing pedestrians’ priority and engendering better motorist yielding behavior. In some U.S. cities, it is becoming common to give pedestrians a head start “in time” by means of a leading pedestrian interval (LPI); however, pedestrians can also be given a head start “in space” using corner bulbouts, setback stoplines, and other protected intersection features that increase the distance from the pedestrian stopline to the vehicle stopline. A model was developed for determining the necessary LPI length as a function of an intersection’s corner geometry. Model elements include determining the path of a right-turning vehicle, defining the conflict zone, determining maximum vehicle speed, and modeling vehicle acceleration, so that vehicle and pedestrian time to reach the conflict zone can be determined. Application to a particular intersection showed that with (a) traditional corner geometry, (b) corner bulbouts added, and (c) a protected intersection layout, necessary LPI was 3.7, 1.1, and 0 s, respectively. The benefits of replacing an LPI with a head start in space included greater vehicle capacity and reduced cycle length, which in turn reduced pedestrian-, transit-, and vehicle delay and improved pedestrian compliance. To fully achieve these benefits, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices should consider eliminating its recommended minimum of 3 s for an LPI.

  PublisherDOI

• Slope stress criteria as a complement to traffic stress criteria, and impact on high comfort bicycle accessibility

  Journal of Transport Geography · 2023-09-21 · 13 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Improving Pedestrian Progression at Multistage Crossings Using Pedestrian–Left Turn Overlaps

  Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board · 2023-10-03 · 2 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  At signalized intersections where pedestrian crossings are divided into two stages by using a median island, pedestrian delay can be very long if the partial-crossing phases have poor progression. One technique for reducing pedestrian delay is pedestrian–left turn overlaps, in which half-crossings that are not in conflict with a left turn are allowed to run during the left turn phase as well as during the parallel vehicle through phase. Such an overlap can enable some pedestrians to cross in a single pass, or to have a far shorter wait at the median. Because this technique requires surrendering some of the flexibility with which left turn phases normally operate—in phases with a pedestrian call, the left turn phase cannot be skipped and may require a longer minimum green—there can also be an impact on vehicle delay. A case study of two intersections in Brookline, MA found that, compared with the current timing plan, using pedestrian–left turn overlaps could reduce pedestrian delay from about 100 to 35 s, with a negligible impact on vehicle delay. A methodological innovation introduced in this study was that average pedestrian delay was calculated for three pedestrian speeds and averaged together, thus accounting for how pedestrian delay at multistage crossings can be far lower for faster pedestrians who may be able to cross in a single pass than for slower pedestrians who have to wait at the crossing island.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Self-Organizing Traffic Signals

  NSF · $232k · 2011–2015

Frequent coauthors

• Theo H. J. Muller

  14 shared

• Burak Cesme

  11 shared

• Otto von Busch

  Historische Kommission zu Berlin e.V.

  9 shared

• Maaza C. Mekuria

  8 shared

• SayedBahman Moghimidarzi

  University Transportation Research Center

  6 shared

• Ahmed T. M. Halawani

  Taibah University

  6 shared

• B Hemily

  University of Toronto

  5 shared

• James G. Strathman

  4 shared

Labs

• Peter G. FurthPI

Awards & honors

• 2023 Best Paper – Committee on Traffic Signal Systems, Trans…
• 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award by the Association of Pedest…
• 2017 ITE Innovation in Education Award
• 2004 Best Paper – Committee on Traffic Signal Systems, Trans…
• 1987 Best Paper – Committee on Transit Performance and Manag…