The red light you just hit? It's supposed to get you to the office sooner

It's mid-afternoon and you see nothing but green ahead as you turn onto a main artery in downtown Calgary. 

Surely if you drive at a steady pace you'll hit each of these green lights.

But the best-laid plans often go awry and you curse your bad luck as that green light flicks red. Here's the thing, though. Luck had nothing to do with it.

Not so far away, near the Stampede grounds in Calgary's southeast, stands one of the people responsible for your driving disruption.

The leader of Calgary's Mobility Operations Centre says the goal is to actually get motorists to their destination faster. Not slower.

"Sometimes you might feel like that," said Sameer Patil. "But that's not our intent."

Patil is standing in front of a monitor wall made up of 14 screens which can display more than 100 traffic cameras across the city simultaneously. 

It looks like something out of a Hollywood film, and it comes with a generous price tag.

City council approved upgrades to the centre at a price of $8.1 million — a more advanced operations room, improved camera systems and more — all of which were completed in 2020.

But for the city, it's money well spent.

As Patil sees it, the mission is to slash traffic congestion; keep roadways safe.

It's no simple job in a city of more than 1.3 million in which approximately 270,500 people enter the downtown via automobile, transit, bike or foot on a typical day.

With a few keystrokes and mouse clicks, staff at the facility can override any of the city's 1,200 traffic signals when necessary: say, when traffic backs up after a Calgary Flames game, or when construction has impacted regular timing. 

It's a big responsibility.