I-80 in Nebraska Getting High-Tech Gadgetry

28 Apr, 2004 at 11:09am ET Article published in Tech

New technology will soon help drivers across the state avoid traffic tie-ups. As part of a larger $40 million plan to be carried out over the next six years, sensors will be placed under the pavement and mounted alongside Interstate 80 to monitor traffic volume and speed.

That information will be brought to drivers on electronic message boards along the highway. Nine of the signs are up and running in the Omaha area. Nine more will soon be installed in other parts of the state and an additional 25 signs will appear on Interstate 80 within the next two years. Travelers also will be able to monitor traffic by viewing color-coded maps on the Internet illustrating the pace on the highway.

Source: Excite/Associated Press

Comments

28 Apr 2004 ~ 12:28pm mmonnin Oh great, people will be staring at the signs instead of driving!:rolleyes2
28 Apr 2004 ~ 2:04pm KingFish Traffic? Nebraska? Why don't I associate those two together. I agree MM, it'll present yet another distraction and make people think about other routes instead of focusing on the vehicle ahead they are about to rearend.

KingFish
28 Apr 2004 ~ 2:38pm gtghm

KingFish wrote:

Traffic? Nebraska?

KingFish

Thast's what I was thinking... LOL

Can't beleive if you haven't experienced rush hour on the 101 in LA or the 5 in Seattle you have now Idea what the heck traffic is... LOL

I'm sure that some of the places back east are like that too but Nebraska.... whoa...
28 Apr 2004 ~ 3:04pm KingFish Prolly just a test case but the rhetorical comment was fun.

KingFish
28 Apr 2004 ~ 3:10pm primesuspect We've had those in michigan for years now. Around 1999, I believe. They are pretty cool actually - they'll tell you about an accident 3 or 4 miles up ahead, and tell you what lanes are blocked or if you should exit. I find them very helpful.
28 Apr 2004 ~ 3:17pm KingFish We have those signs too especially with our two big bridges that we have in our city. The difference here is that our current signs require human intervention to manually type something in on the signs to notify the public of a wreck ahead and of the interstate bypass option. With the new system there would be sensors placed in the roadway that would monitor traffic loads to let motorists know via the internet if traffic was slowed down and how congested it appeared to be. There would be cameras mounted also that would show real time images on the net of traffic congestion. All this would be done without human intervention and give drivers more information on what to base their routes rather than just notifying them of wrecks ahead. I don't know what type of system is in place in Michigan right now though. From what I gather most of the Dept. of Transportations around the states have some sort of sign system in place to warn of wrecks ahead but is considered a "dumb" system compared to the system being deployed here.

KingFish
28 Apr 2004 ~ 3:21pm primesuspect Ours run on 802.11 I drove under one that was, for some reason or another, broadcasting it's SSID one time. The SSID was "Bridge01A2" or something like that.

/me gets out my knoppix CD.

They are networked, I know that much. I'm sure there's a central command center somewhere where a person can control all the signs in the area.
28 Apr 2004 ~ 5:14pm KingFish If it's like most it's controlled by your state DOT.

KingFish
28 Apr 2004 ~ 5:25pm 289Mustang Being from Nebraska I would agree that there isn't alot of traffic except on I-80. It's really bad around Omaha but has gotten better now that they are done with the construction. They already use the signs for those amber alerts so I think it's good that they found another use for the things