I am sure that this works at least in Finland.
In Finland these light sensor lights are in places where usually is less traffic, but the road is still quite big. So when you are coming to this kind of junktions, all the lights are red and this is the easiest way to recognice this kind of junktions. If you have extra long pair of head lights this works extremely well.
It is a nice feeling when you get the first green when you are still in motion and the other guy will have to wait. Even if the other car was nearer the lights in closing phase, but you ordered the green 100 meters before the lights just because you flinked
In Finland Buses and etc. have these IR type remote controllers, by which they can send signal to the lights that they are coming towards the lights. Depending on the situation lights will be green longer if the bus is on the green lane. If the bus is on the other light the green will be much shorter than normally.
Near firedepartments lights can be controlled from remote control centrals. So usually they put the lights to flink yellow. Of course this depends on the city size and traffic conditions, in heavy traffic this is not possible. In these cituation they try put the lights to green when firetruck is near the lights.
I have to mention that 20-30 % ( my estimation) percent of the lights are timed also here in Finland. So the ligths will turn in certain pattern with or without cars. This is very frustraging if you are the only car in the lights and it takes over one minute to get the green.