page_title: Traffic-light signalling and operation
section_title: Arrow lights
hierarchical_section_title: Traffic-light signalling and operation / Unusual traffic light designs / Traffic lights in Tianjin, China / Arrow lights
caption_attribution_description: English: Tianjin Traffic Lights (2). DF08 2004 image.
context_page_description: The use of traffic lights to control the movement of traffic differs regionally and internationally in certain respects. Note that the color phase commonly known as "yellow" is often referred to, especially in official usage, as "amber"; for consistency this article uses "yellow" throughout.
context_section_description: Another system, which is also common in the other cities in China, is where there is a set of three lights as traffic lights. Every light is an arrow pointing in a different direction and every arrow has a colour of its own, to show whether traffic flow is permitted or prohibited in that direction.
  The major disadvantage of this system of traffic light is that it is unfamiliar to those who are used to seeing specific colours of the traffic lights at the various ends of a normal traffic light itself (e.g. green rightmost, red leftmost, etc.) as well is being problematic for the color blind (although by Chinese traffic laws, people who are color blind are not permitted to drive). It does, however, conserve space. The other disadvantage of it is it does not have indication of when a turn can be made without yielding and when the turn can made only after yielding to the oncoming traffic. Although by Chinese traffic laws, turning is always supposed to be made after yielding to oncoming traffic.
  Elsewhere in China, a blinking green light means "reduce speed now", attempting to stop cars from passing (if that car can still safely stop in time) and is nearly universal in appearance. Some cities or parts of cities show the number of seconds remaining in a specific traffic light colour (a so-called "countdown meter").
  Another type of signal that can be found in China is the Unilight signal that displays all three colours in one signal section.
caption: The "multiple arrow traffic light" in Tianjin (variant two)
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