A heuristic approach to the application of bandwidth-oriented signal coordination is proposed based on a system partition technique. The proposed approach divides a large signalized arterial into subsystems based on clustering results considering factors such as block distance and turning movements. Each subsystem is optimized to achieve the maximum bandwidth efficiency. Evaluation of the system includes two parts, THOS (through opportunity) comparison and simulation evaluation. Two case studies are presented to illustrate how the proposed approach can be applied, and the influence of clustering method on signal coordination is presented with comparison of three scenarios, no partition, 2 clusters and 3 clusters. Evaluation of the case study shows that clustering method is beneficial in improving progression bandwidth, bandwidth efficiency, bandwidth attainability and THOS. Clustering is good for signal coordination in that either 2 clusters or 3 clusters will result in better performance measures that no partition. However, clustering is not always good for signal coordination in certain conditions. Though bandwidth and bandwidth efficiency of each sub-system can be improved after partition, control delay or number of stops for the corridor might be increased instead for certain conditions of the entire corridor. Whether or not clustering method can be used to partition a signalized system for the purpose of better signal coordination depends on specific traffic and geometric conditions of the corridor. When bandwidth capacity is exceeded by demand, bandwidth optimization should better give way to delay-based optimization strategies.