ITE Traffic Bowl Fundamentals and Engineering Practice Test

In traffic signal timing, the total time for one complete sequence of all phases is the cycle length. The way that cycle is divided among the different movements—how long each phase gets, including the green time plus any pedestrian clearance, yellow, and all-red intervals—is the split. The splits across all phases add up to the cycle length, so the term that describes that set of allocations is split. The cycle is the whole duration, a phase is a single stage in the sequence, and offset is the timing difference between signals at different intersections.