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Check Traffic Congestion Online
braddk writes "Looks like traffic helicopters will slowly become unnecessary in Denver, as an ongoing construction project implements online traffic data. The traffic is monitored via "vehicle counters" placed at the onramps and in between interchanges. Although only a 10 mile section is currently monitored, plans are to add more sensors as they complete sections of the larger project. They also have a lighter version for mobile phone users.
Click here to see the Flash version
and to check out the current traffic in Denver. Now I can check whether I really want to head to work in the morning." Kinda like that project in Finland.
Atlanta's traffic Sure it is not in pretty flash, but is is much more extensive.
It's great when someone finally implements new and
:)
inventive stuff in real life IT environments. Now
if they could just do it in my country.
I love the idea of getting a sms saying that it's
going to be 3 hours in traffic before you get home
The reporters can sit in their studios and follow the congestions real-time and will report it with regular intervals on the news. Works fine.
Aren't similar systems in use in lotsof other places?
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
The really scary thing is that the 'vehicle counters' use fighter aircraft target aquisition radar! - Wonder if they have the high speed cannon's to go with them?
We've had this in the UK for a decade. It's called traffic master. Speed senors are mounted on freeway bridges all around the country and provide constsnt traffic flow information, which can be relayed to a map display on the dash.
Speed sensors give rather better information for this purpose than car-counters. See http://www.trafficmaster.co.uk/
This sounds like the Coordinated Highways Action Response Team. It has an interactive map with colored arrows indicating the speed of traffic on both sides of the highway for a variety of roads in the DC/Baltimore area.
(But please don't Slashdot it, or I won't know if it's safe to leave for work!)
Check that: :-)
http://www.transport.ntua.gr/map/
It works for years now, and is very accurate
This plan, although interesting is stuck in the Stone Age. Use GPS transmitters to monitor density. Sure it would require fitting vehicles with a unit but eliminating the cost of expensive sensors and helicopter time could really balance things out. Has anyone done any research in this area?
And on a side note...
I've always wondered why with cheep GPS availability the ever encroaching government doesn't just monitor speeds and mileage from in the car. I know Oregon was thinking about a mileage counter with GPS systems but there was no mention of speed tracking. I am not an advocate of such a thing, privacy is a good thing, but there is no doubt that if drivers know they will get caught the roads would be a safer place.
Copenhagen (Denmark) has that already, but I don't know anybody that uses it. Your plan for the day is made the day before - when you set your alarm clock. When you've eaten breakfast you drive to work. You don't turn on your PC to check the traffic - that wouldn't get you faster to work.
Once you're on the road, traffic radio takes care of redirections in case of special problems, and even though they use sensors today instead of helicopter - who cares?
Last week the sensor system was down btw, so they asked people to phone in with their mobile phones, and the information given in the radio based on those phoners was very good - if not better than when they use the sensors, simply because the cause for problems was included in the messages.
Dybdahl.
Seattle's had maps like this for years, and they work quite well:
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/PugetSoundTraffic/
They don't read speed directly, but rather chart traffic density by measuring the changes in inductance of 6 foot metal loops embedded in the highway every 1/2 mile or so. They count cars passing over the loops and measure the time a car spends over it.
From the WSDOT FAQ:
"How are "Stop and Go", "Heavy", "Moderate", and "Wide Open" defined?
Their definitions are based on a measurement called "loop occupancy". This is the percentage of time that a 6 foot square loop sensor is activated, or occupied, by vehicles traveling over it. Loop occupancy is measured by sampling the loop detector at a rate of 60 times per second. Each sample results in a "loop occupied" or "loop not occupied" response. A counter is incremented once for each "loop occupied" response. After 20 seconds, the total number of "loop occupied" responses is divided by 1200 (the total number of samples in a 20-second period) and then multiplied by 100 to get a percentage. The result is known as occupancy. On the map, "Stop and Go" (or BLACK) is defined as occupancy greater than 35%, "Heavy" (or RED) is 22-35% occupancy, "Moderate" (or YELLOW) is 15-22% occupancy, "Wide Open" (or GREEN) is below 15% occupancy. "
Such things have existed for years in the US.
Here's Houston: http://traffic.tamu.edu/incmap/
Here's Dallas: http://dfwtraffic.dot.state.tx.us/dfwweb/
These don't use 'car counters' (sounds expensive), they simply use the RFID tags that the tollway system uses to automatically charge you when you cruise through at 70 mph. They just set the sensors up on the side of the road (cheap), and send the info in. That's why they can afford to have coverage over the entire city, not just downtown like that slow Denver map.
What would be great is a standardized system to push these maps to LCD screens in your car.
I've been thinking for a while that something like this combined with a combination satellite/digital radio receiver and GPS/map would work wonders at getting people around traffic jams. A lot of high congestion areas in urbanized counties have electronic traffic monitoring, if they'd go the next step and get that data out to everyone, there'd be a real change in the way people commute.
The way I see it digital/satellite radio is next to useless for music, you just get the same crap you find on the FM dial. Digital/satellite radio has a redeeming aspect in the fact it is a digital stream of information. In between packets carrying Britney Spears and Metalica you can stick useful data like say...freeway information. If traffic advisory stations broadcast easily parsed text streams inbetween their [digital] audio broadcasts a smart box in your car could pick out the text and parse it for display.
Since people looking down to read text advisories would end up being the sources of advisories themselves the computer could do the hard work for them. If you break up a particular freeway into arbitrary sections and in your text advisory say "101:57:32 101-405:10" (101 for the freeway, 57 for the 57th mile/section, 32 for the speed in mph and 101-405 for an interchange and 10 for the speed) the computer could change that section of the freeway on your simplified street map to being a dark red. The area you were going 75 on would be a nice bright green. It could even do you one better by figuring out via GPS which mile/section you were on and tell you approximatly how long until you got to the jam and possibly give you alternate surface routes past it. If you wanted it wouldn't be terribly difficult to have the computer just give you a verbal warning and alternate route suggestions.
If you have a decent number of drivers knowing the future road conditions they can be a little more careful when coming to a jam. There'd be less (in an ideal situation) screeching brakes because some jackass is suprised to see a line of tail lights. Also being as this stuff could use digital radio infrastructure which is on its way and not take up much more space or processing power in your card radio it'd be pretty convenient.
Ultimately a reduction in traffic jams is going to mean a reduction in injuries from them and much less environment impact from having half a googlplex of cars on the road. Current traffic advisories do a good job of giving you fair warning as long as you listen to a station that does regular enough advisories for them to be useful. They're also easily clocked out by playing a CD (and thus not listening to the radio). A digital system could play a CD or any radio station and still provide visual or audible warnings gathered from traffic services. It's no solution to traffic problems but in the long run might save a lot of lives, headaches, and gallons of black stuff.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Nothing new in France either.
Roads have had sensors for at least a decade.
Used for different purposes
- traffic monitoring (accidents, etc.)
- driver information by huge screens on the road, telling how long to this and this direction ; and I find it really nerve calming to know how long it will take and be able to organize (once it only said how long - in distance - the congestion is, which I don't care about)
- website for 4 years.
Here we have two type of sensors
- simple loops, which only give information about the "coverage rate" (that is, proportion of time there is a vehicle on the loop. Funnily, this figure is heavily correlated with the state of traffic and the speed of the vehicles. 0.1 is heavy traffic and 0.2 is congestion. I do not recall exacly the figures but you get the highest throughput for a magic "coverage rate" which corresponds to around 57 kmph (~37 mph).
- double loops are simple loops 1 meter away ; correlating data from the two gives you the time decay between them and so the speed of vehicles, in a more reliable fashion than just simple loops ; in particular with these you can ajust the nominal traffic model with observed speeds so your model integrates real road conditions (snow, rain, saturday night...) and single loops can then give you very accurate information.
On heavily trafficked roads (eg Boulevard Peripherique in Paris) you have a single loop every 400m and a double every 2km AFAIR.
Yeah, the ***creepy*** thing about Houston's system is the way they calculate the speed of traffic flow. The toll system has a little gadget called EZ-TAG that lets you zip through the toll plazas without even slowing down. It has a little radio transmitter that talks to a reciever in the plaza. The traffic monitoring system has checkpoints that monitor these, and since it can uniquely identify you, it knows your average speed for that segment. They ***say*** that they won't ever use it against you (ie to write speeding tickets) but if they ever start, if will be back to coins for me. Or at the very least, a special RF blocking case to protect me from the eye in the sky...
the parent post was probably right, given that the link is:
http://traffic.tamu.edu/incmap/incmap.aspx
JDR
...and the data is available from many sites.
You assume the sensor is "dead," but these traffic management systems set ramp meters based on conditions further down the road. Traffic may be rushing towards a stop. Minneapolis-St. Paul has had these sensors and ramp meters for years now. One of State Senators got a bug up his backside about them and forced MnDOT to do a "study" (well, it was a real study) that involved shutting down all the ramp meters for weeks. The results? A disaster. Congestion increased severly on most roads. Most trips *increased* in drive time (yes, even when you include time spent being an "asshat" at a ramp meter).
The interesting thing was that this was not 100% true. Some routes got better. And drive times improved over the course of the study, although they didn't come back to anywhere near as good (on average) as they were before metering. In other words, people found alternate routes.
One outcome of this was the appearence of lighted arrow signs along side streets of the most congested highways that come on to point motorists on to alternate routes when congestion is severe. Unlike the ramp meters, these are mere suggestions. But it seems to have improved things.
Transit is a huge political issue here. The Republicans took over Minnesota government last election largely by promising massive road building instead of public transit. That's pretty remarkable for MN which has long been considered a Democratic stronghold. People get "het up" about traffic.
Traffic metering WORKS. Sure, you get annoyed waiting on the ramps, but they really do improve travel time.
Oh yeah, the study did improve their meter rates. They were able to speed some meters up and slow some others down and *improve* travel times over the pre-study metering system. It didn't stop me cursing that senator every time I commuted during the study! BTW, in 2001, when the study was done, there were 233 metered ramps in the metro area during the morning rush, and 283 metered ramps in the afternoon rush. I don't really know how many meters exist now, although MnDOT's web site could probably tell you. They have data on the study and its aftermath on their web site.