City Lights

Regulated Streets and the Evolution of Traffic Lights in the Netherlands, 1920–1940

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10249326
AutoresHans Buiter (Foundation for the History of Technology, Eindhoven), Peter-Eloy Staal (ANWB Archives, The Hague)
Ano2006
Volume27
Fascículo2
Páginas1-20
Data de publicação2006-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Journal of Transport History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0022-5266 • E-ISSN: 1759-3999
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.7227/tjth.27.2.4
OpenAlexW2010241445
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas7

This article analyses the introduction and diffusion of traffic lights into Dutch cities between 1920 and 1940, looking for patterns in their development. The article explores the question of why traffic lights in the Netherlands initially emerged – between 1926 and 1934 – in a broad range of color combinations, only to be reduced to the three standard colors we know today by the mid-1930s. The author uses the metaphor of quasi-revolutionary development, a theory of technological development that is well known to historians of technology, to analyze these patterns. In explaining this standardization process, the author explores both variation and selection, which began under the national government after legal reasons and pressure from Algemene Nederlandse Wielrijders Bond (ANWB), the Dutch tourist organization, forced it to intervene

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