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From this week onwards, instead of a male figure, four traffic lights in Fuenlabrada (a town to the south of Madrid with 190,000 inhabitants) now feature a female ideogram.

The new figures — with a skirt and long hair — are the second phase of the municipal programme for equal rights in road safety. The first phase, which caused some controversy, consisted of fitting ideograms with skirts and ponytails at 25 pedestrian crossings, in November 2006.

One side of the crossing shows a male figure and the other side a female one. But at the new traffic lights men and women will switch every two seconds, providing more real-time equality.

These devices have been installed initially for four traffic lights at the intersection between Calle de Portugal and Calle de Francia — the main route to the local hospital, university campus, and a major road exit. According to local-authority sources, they will be implemented gradually, with the new traffic lights being installed as the old one break down or wear out.

Materialising this idea did not prove to be as simple as it might first appear. one of the leading traffic-light firms (SICE) worked with Madrid Polytechnic’s  School of Telecommunications In order to make a man to turn into a woman merely by switching on 12 tiny LEDs. “The technology is Spanish. The work took over a year, and we had to build several prototypes and ensure that they complied with quality and safety requirements,” explained local-authority sources explained. All the materials used in the project are ecological.

Fuenlabrada’s idea looks set to be exported to other areas soon. According to the district council, many other local authorities in Spain and abroad have already expressed interest in these equal-opportunities traffic lights.