Nu-Metrics continues its commitment to the deployment of ITS products and systems to enhance highway travel and help prevent serious injury or loss of life by providing real-time information and data about traffic, weather, roadway, and equipment conditions. The company’s new Remote Alarm Monitoring System is a compact, self-contained, solar-powered unit that can be quickly installed at any remote location for wireless monitoring of critical equipment or on-site conditions. Additional applications of the RAMS include locations where frequent flooding of a roadway, culvert, or other area occurs. As well as immediate notification of flooding, RAMS can automatically activate warning lights or signs to advise travelers. The system can monitor and report water or liquid levels in culverts, rivers and streams, drains, sewers, tanks, viaducts, or similar remote sites.

Inoperative or defective traffic control or intersection signals are potentially dangerous for both vehicle and pedestrian traffic. RAMS can be used to constantly monitor the condition and operation of those signals. Should a power failure or other condition cause the signals to become inoperative, it can notify the appropriate repair personnel within seconds.

The RAMS technology was used in a new product distributed by Energy Absorption Systems, Inc. called Impact Monitoring System. The first installation of IMS involved an application for 10 highway crash cushions at different locations in Seattle, Washington. Using advanced wireless Cellemetry technology, the system constantly monitors and reports the condition of the crash cushions. By using the non-voice or control channel of cellular networks, Cellemetry provides a fast, flexible, and inexpensive two-way, unattended communication link between a central monitoring center and remote equipment or devices. Using the technology, RAMS will periodically report good health or green status of the location to a central monitoring station. Whenever a crash cushion is impacted by a vehicle, it immediately notifies the central monitoring station, which then contacts appropriate emergency and maintenance or repair personnel. Notification can be made automatically by telephone, pager, cell phone, or e-mail.

Write 11056 on ROADFAX card

Carte Graph applications help private and public organizations manage any type of asset, ranging from signs and signals to pavement and pavement markings. SIGNview provides the tools to maintain an accurate and up-to-date sign database of information on location, features, maintenance, history, and inspections. Detailed sign data available at your fingertips saves time, reduces liability, and improves community safety. And SIGNALview has the tools that allow you to record, maintain, and analyze the data on all of the components in a signal system.

With PAVEMENTview, you’ll benefit from optimized data collection, improved records accuracy, departmental efficiency, simplified analysis and decision making, streamlined workplan development, and decreased maintenance costs. As you strive to optimize available budgets, the capital improvement planning power of PAVEMENTview Plus makes it easy to analyze maintenance priorities, alternatives, costs, and benefits. Use WORKdirector to collect, inventory, inspect, and manage all of your assets, including employees, materials, equipment, work orders, and purchase orders. It provides the tools that allow you to easily complete the tasks you once had to do manually, including: manage work requests and work orders; assign labor, equipment, and material resources; track employees, materials, and equipment; track maintenance history events; develop queries and generate standard/custom reports; and record and track public complaints.

MARKINGview is a tool for developing and maintaining a database of your intersection, street, and highway pavement markings. Detailed records that include location, features, and maintenance history are available with a click of a button and can be used for reporting, budgeting, improving safety, and more. MAPdirector applications allow you to view asset data on a map by integrating with CarteGraph’s asset management programs.

Write 11057 on ROADFAX card

EIS Inc. recently completed deployment of RTMS (Remote Traffic Microwave Sensor) vehicle detectors in the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 2.5-mi. tunnel is the longest combined railway/highway use tunnel in North America and the first tunnel with a unique computerized traffic-control system that regulates both trains and automobiles. The sensor system is for the Tunnel Control System, a critical and complicated part of the tunnel operation.

The RTMS detects vehicle presence and provides the data over an RS-232 link to the TCS, which uses the data to automatically identify abnormalities as the vehicles travel through the tunnel’s mountainous rock, ensuring smooth operation and traveler safety. The company’s flagship product, RTMS provides vehicle detection for intersection, incident detection, and vehicle counting requirements in over 25 countries worldwide.

Write 11058 on ROADFAX card

PULNiX America, Inc. has a new portable speed enforcement system for work-zone safety applications. Two trailer-mounted Vehicle Image Capture Systems are used to calculate the average speed of vehicles as they pass through a work zone.

As a vehicle enters the work zone, its image is captured and stamped with global positioning system time information and then transmitted to the exit location. As the same vehicle passes under the exit station, its image is again captured, time stamped, and matched (using the company’s patented technology) to the database of entry images. Times on the matched images are compared and the average speed is calculated. If the system determines that the vehicle has violated work-zone speed limits, then — and only then — the image will be saved for future processing. Images of non-violators are deleted immediately.

Write 11059 on ROADFAX card

The Trans-Valley Corridor in Washington state is a major east-west link between large residential areas and several industrial complexes as well as urban and employment centers. It includes a total of 21 traffic signals, operated and maintained by five separate agencies. To improve travel conditions, the Department of Transportation, King County, Washington, selected a team led by Sverdrup Civil Inc., a Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. company, to design and execute an intelligent transportation system for the corridor.

The five agencies — King County, WADOT, and the cities of Renton, Tukwila, and Kent — will each play a role in developing the ITS. The 21-signal corridor includes three unique controller types, adding to the project’s complexity. Corridor ITS such as Trans-Valley is designed to achieve several goals: increase the efficient movement of goods and people; improve the safety and security of travelers; and provide a seamless travel experience between modes.

While exact ITS applications have not yet been selected, the agencies have expressed interest in Advanced Traffic Signal Control Strategies, Traffic Surveillance (CCTV), Transit Signal Priority, traveler kiosks, and a traveler information Web site.

Advanced Traffic Signal Control Strategies enable traffic signals to talk to one another. Providing this communication between signals allows adjustments in signal timing to maximize vehicular throughput and minimize delay. Traffic Surveillance through closed-circuit television lets the traffic control center staff observe traffic conditions throughout the corridor in real time. The real-time images allow control center staff to respond immediately to incidents, traffic congestion, and equipment malfunction. Response may include the dispatch of police, fire, and maintenance crews. Transit Signal Priority is a strategy to maximize the schedule adherence of transit vehicles. This ITS strategy requires specialized equipment on the transit vehicles, upstream of the traffic signal, and at the signal controller. Transit vehicles communicate with the signal controller and, in response, the signal controller can adjust the traffic signal timing to allow the vehicle to pass through the intersection without stopping. Traveler kiosks and traveler information Web sites are used to disseminate real-time traffic information to the public.

As with any inter-agency project, there are unique challenges that the Trans-Valley ITS Corridor design must face. By identifying the challenges early and developing a strategy to address them, surprises down the road can be prevented.

Write 11060 on ROADFAX card

International Road Dynamics is a highway traffic management products and systems technology company that covers a wide range of ITS markets. The company’s team of professionals is experienced in the design and supply of automated truck weigh stations, advanced traffic data collection and traffic control systems, freeway management systems, and fleet management and transit systems.

IRD has recently been awarded a five-year contract for the design, supply, installation, and maintenance of a Shadow Toll System for the Fredericton-Moncton, New Brunswick highway. The system allows highway agencies to develop new sections of highways, or contract the maintenance and service of existing highways, with payment based on traffic volume or road usage. The system permits the operation of the highway and monitoring of roadway performance without actually imposing monetary tolls on motorists, and will provide key information to improve the quality of road management and maintenance practices.

IRD also has the Dynamic Work Zone Safety System, a traffic control product for construction work zones. The ITS assists in the prevention of dangerous merging that occurs on the tapered approaches to work zones. It works by establishing a dynamic no-passing zone based on vehicle queue lengths. A typical system has three to five portable DO NOT PASS WHEN FLASHING signs mounted on modified work-site speed limit trailers. Each trailer is placed at various lengths in advance of the work zone. The base unit nearest the lane restriction is always on. The strobe lights are always flashing and the traffic sensor continuously monitors lane occupancy, which creates a NO PASSING zone between the construction site and the first sign. When the sensor detects an occupancy level that is higher than the predetermined setting, a signal activates the next upstream sign and strobe lights start to flash. So the NO PASSING zone expands or shrinks with traffic congestion.

Write 11061 on ROADFAX card