A newly installed Emergency Vehicle Preemption (EVP) system on all 15 of the town of Vienna’s traffic signals is proving beneficial to the Vienna Volunteer Fire Department and the community it serves, the department’s chief told the Vienna Town Council July 8.
The Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department in 2020 gave the town two EVP devices to install at Maple Avenue’s intersections with Center Street and Lawyers/Courthouse roads, said Vienna Volunteer Fire Chief John Morrison.
The Vienna Town Council in 2021 used American Rescue Plan Act funding to purchase similar equipment for the 13 remaining traffic signals, he said.
“The town staff has really been outstanding in doing this,” Morrison said.
Crews on fire engines, ambulances and chief’s vehicles activate transmitters that turn traffic signals green in the direction where they’re heading. This allows not only better incident-response times along Maple Avenue – Morrison estimated a 10-percent improvement – but makes intersections safer, he said.
“Rather than us going through a red light and competing with people who are looking at green lights, the lights for them turn red and we get green lights as we go through,” Morrison said. “It makes it safer for us to go through this town.”
All fire-department vehicles in the county now are equipped with EVP devices.
“Now you can go from McLean almost to the city of Fairfax and never hit a red light when you have one of these devices,” he said, noting that the equipment benefits not only Vienna’s first-responders but ones from around the area who need to travel into or through the town.
Morrison thanked the Council for obtaining the funds needed to equip the traffic signals.
“It was not a trivial amount of money to invest, but it is a great investment in this community,” he said.
