For the case when quantitative characteristics of traffic flows and the failure rates of traffic lights’ elements are known, quantitative relationships for the feasibility analysis of warm standby of the adaptive traffic lights at intersections have been found. The equations and recurrence relations of their probability distributions are obtained as the Laplace transform of sequences of times of limited permissive phases of alternative movement directions. The intelligent system of traffic control with the adaptive traffic lights as the main control unit is considered as a single-line queuing system with the FIFO (first in, first out) service discipline for the Markov flow of recoverable components’ failures.

As a result, two-way estimate for the failure probability of the adaptive traffic lights is obtained and the effect of warm standby use for the traffic lights at two-way stop-controlled intersection is assessed. In the presented example waiting time for the vehicles at the intersection with adaptive controlled traffic appeared to be considerably less than in the case when there is no adaptive traffic control. It allows to highlight advantages of warm standby use as a mean to ensure the reliability of the adaptive traffic lights.