A Green Light for Kansas City Firefighters

Talk about a bad commute.

Whenever Wayne Harder hit the intersection of 95th Street and Lee Boulevard the result was the same: traffic. Usually lots of it.

To most that would simply be an annoyance, but for Harder, a captain with Leawoods Fire Department, the intersection is potentially dangerous. The majority of calls that come to Fire Station No. 1, 9609 Lee Blvd., where Harder works, require first responders to go through the intersection.

Theres a lot of traffic that goes east/west.We always have quite a delay, Harder said.

Well, used to. The corner of 95th and Lee is one of the first intersections in Leawood to be equipped for Opti-Com technology a small, about four inch by six inch box attached to fire trucks that allows the trucks to change lights as they drive to an emergency. With Opti-Com in place, problems with traffic flow have diminished in recent weeks.

Now Lee Boulevard is working like a dream, Harder said. People have been stopping.

Opti-Com is not new technology. Overland Park, for example, has used the technology to great effect for at least 15 years.

They help us keep a constant flow, said Overland Park Fire Chief Bryan Dehner. A lot of time if we can pre-empt (a firetrucks arrival), traffic has a place to go instead of creating logjam.

Opti-Com works through sensors. A unit is placed at the traffic lights of an intersection, and a unit is mounted somewhere on the fire truck. When Opti-Com is turned on, it sends an infrared signal from the truck, ensuring the light is green.

The system is fairly expensive. Leawood bought nine units for its trucks, for a total of about $12,000.) But Leawoods Deputy Fire Chief Randy Hill said the technology was necessary as Leawood continued to grow.

As we add traffic lights, you get more traffic, Hill said. We have to think about ways to continue to improve response times.

Opti-Com can only help efforts to get firefighters to the scene of an emergency quicker, Hill said. Leawoods current policy is for emergency vehicles to come to a complete stop when they hit a red light regardless of the emergency level. While lights and sirens typically signal non-emergency vehicles to pull over, Opti-Com is designed to add another confusion-reducing element.

Hill said that once Opti-Com was fully up and running, he expected the technology to pay immediate dividends in improved response times. The system is still being calibrated for Leawoods fire trucks in the city and in Johnson County. Hill expects it to be fully operational within the next two months.

Harder, though, is already experiencing Opti-Coms benefits.

A red light is always the biggest headache when youre responding to a call, he said. With Opti-Com, Youve got a little bit more helping you out, getting you to the call.