Glossary
Traffic Technician Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential traffic technician terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key traffic technician vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in traffic technician training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- 85th percentile speed
- Speed used to set limits.
- ADT
- Average daily traffic.
- Corridor
- Stretch of road.
- Crash rate
- Crashes per volume.
- Cycle length
- Time for a full signal cycle.
- Detector loop
- Senses vehicles.
- IMSA
- International Municipal Signal Association.
- Level of service
- Traffic quality grade.
- MUTCD
- Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.
- Peak hour
- Busiest hour.
- Pedestrian interval
- Walk time.
- Phase
- Movement given green.
- Signal timing
- Light cycle plan.
- Turning movement count
- Counts turns at intersections.
- Warrant
- Criteria for a signal.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Traffic Technician practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Traffic Technician training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.