Smart Roads

Traffic is a growing problem in almost every city in the world. The average American motorist spends 36 hours in traffic delays each year. The cost of traffic congestion in just the United States is in excess of $78 billion-this also involves 4.5 billion hours of travel time and 6.8 billion gallons of fuel (fossil fuel, pollution generating). Billions of dollars more have been spent on electronics and systems to alleviate this logjam.

Government transportation agencies throughout the world are seeking out, new, cheaper technology, to replace the high-priced, invasive technologies that have been used—a Smart Roads Concept.

Current State of Traffic Technology

Over the last two decades, state departments of transportation have installed billions of dollars worth of electronics to keep an eye on and manage traffic. Currently traffic flow in highly congested areas is managed by using three basic devices:

Loop detectors
Video Cameras
Electronic Display Signs

Loop detectors-There are wires embedded in the road that detect small changes in electrical voltage caused by a passing vehicle. Traffic speed is determined by detecting how quickly cars pass between two sets of loop detectors. Volume and speed data is transmitted to a central computer, which is monitored by local transportation departments. This works but is very expensive in highway construction costs of laying and maintaining the loop detectors. They can also be very invasive to drivers passing over these lines as they age.

Video Cameras-If detectors sense a slowdown or an increased quantity in traffic, workers use video cameras to get a better understanding of what’s causing it. These video camera systems are very expensive to layout therefore they may not be laid out as far as the system may require.

Electronic Display Signs-When congestion is confirmed by the video cameras, messages can be displayed on electronic signs to warn motorists of congestion ahead and to advise of alternate routes.

This system works but is costing billions of dollars and installing all these detectors, cameras, and sign has been a long, slow process.

Future Traffic Designs

The future is here in many respects. Two promising new technologies that offer quick reductions in costs are currently being implemented.

Hyperbolic Multilateration Positioning (Triangulation using Cell phones equipped with two-way pagers)

Cell phone listening posts which are currently in use and attached to base stations (listening posts can detect but not transmit messages to a cell phone) are needed to get a two dimensional position of a cell phone user. Listening posts detect cell phone transmissions, decode it and time stamp the arrival of the wavefront from the transmission. Once three towers have time stamped a transmission, the information is quickly sent to a central computer that uses hyperbolic multilateration to determine a cell phone’s position on the highway. Once the vehicle is tagged its time is analyzed and highway congestion can be determined.

As cell phones improved positioning techniques with Geopositioning locaters and improvements in cell phones, individuals will be able to get personalized warnings of highway congestion and problems.

This is a great plus for transportation agencies, (especially in large cities where the towers exist and will be improved by the cell phone companies and since most cities have high concentrations of cell phone users) as no new additional construction costs will be needed for this system.

Tagging

As an addition to cell-phone tagging systems, transportation agencies are also installing additional electronic toll tag readers along major highways.

In some cities where toll booths are common, radio-frequency tags are attached to cars (smart cards-EZ Pass). These radio tags can not only facilitate payment of the toll but can also be used to time vehicles between points in a freeway system. By analyzing a car’s time between two points, a computer can determine the car’s location and speed-thus determine traffic congestion

Getting the information out

Once the information is detected, it must be disseminated to motorists. In order to ease congestion drivers must be informed how fast the traffic is flowing, if it’s congested or if it has stopped altogether. Providers can then come into the picture they will warn the motorists in an easy to understand quick read format such as the one below:

The collected information is fed into a large repository that can be accessed via a web-site, especially helpful with the next generation web access cell phones
Registered users, whose locations are known, are sent customized traffic reports based on the road and direction in which they are traveling (these could be pre-filed with the service providers).
Information is displayed on conventional electronic road signs, accessed with the newer technologies.

Current projects are being coordinated with the Federal Highway Administration Intelligent Transportation Systems Research Center of Excellence, through the National Highway System Consortium. It performs intelligent transportation systems research and development, including concept design, technology transfer, policy studies, modeling and algorithm development, simulation and controlled tests, building of product prototypes, field tests, and field evaluations. The consortium is discontinuing it work but the companies involved in its work are listed on the website.

http://nahsc.volpe.dot.gov/

Areas of research for the Future (using MEMS, GPS locators, etc for instrumentations):

1. design a system so that drivers can relinquish and take back control of their cars (going off the roads)

2. collision warning and avoidance systems with the goal of providing information before a driver could process it, or of assisting in circumstances where the driver would be unable to respond in time (switching lanes with car coming)

3. advanced traveler information systems, such as your vehicle telling you if there is a stop sign ahead

4. work in conjunction with road sensors and communications, such as a sensor on a bridge that tells you there's an icy bridge

5. mayday systems for rural roads

The Federal Highway Administration funded three research laboratories as Centers of Excellence for the Intelligent Transportation Research. They are listed and website links and a repository for the research is located at:

http://rce.tamu.edu/

Research in Europe is also progressing in this area:

http://www.ntf-recap.org/index.html

Transguide website: Has electronic databases for research, but not very user friendly. Be sure to convert languages-its in Swedish

http://www.transguide.org/

White papers that explains the parameters of data needed for highway system management:

http://www.calit2.net/events/2001/witts/trivedi.pdf

http://gulliver.trb.org/publications/circulars/ec001/svid.html

http://www.itsa.org/committe.nsf/364ace963601e0e8852565d70069ea76/927ffa73fd8df7378525665d005faaf7?OpenDocument

Book to buy on future visions

http://oecdpublications.gfi-nb.com/cgi-bin/OECDBookShop.storefront/EN/product/772002021P1

Website for research by Transportation Research Board-established by Congress: