On-the-Button Navigation Devices a Goal Of Grants Proposed in Va. to Ease Traffic
By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
It's cold, it's dark, you're tired, and the last thing you want to face is one more backup on Interstate 66. Imagine if your cellphone or vehicle navigation system knew about one and directed you to Route 50 because it would shave 11 minutes off your ride.
As regional transportation planners seek to widen highways and build Metro lines to increase options for commuters, leaders in Virginia are trying to get that kind of please-say-it's-so technology into the hands of drivers to get more out of the roads they have.
"We need help," said Pierce R. Homer, Virginia's transportation secretary. To that end, the budget proposed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) includes $20 million for technology "challenge grants" to generate ideas about reducing congestion. Homer said the ideas could include ways to clear accidents more quickly or encourage telecommuting.
But the holy grail of the effort is providing an accurate, real-time picture of traffic conditions on all roads -- technology that could start appearing in this area by the end of the year.
Some companies are using information from cellphones and E-ZPass transponders to fine-tune technology that could give drivers information so precise they would know the best exit to take and where to find alternate roads with favorable traffic lights. When drivers are backed up on the Dulles Toll Road, they would know whether Route 7, for example, would be better.
Managers could use the same information to better time cars merging onto roads and to create a steady traffic flow, eliminating the typical bottlenecks.
Traffic data are limited to roadside cameras and sensors buried in the pavement. These are expensive to install and maintain and are generally limited to interstates and major highways. And the information they provide -- it is 6 p.m. and the Capital Beltway is jammed -- is hardly a revelation. Radio, television and Internet reports, which rely on much of the same information, are not much better.
To make the leap forward, companies are trying to tap into widely used technology, such as cellphones, Global Positioning System units and E-ZPass transponders. Cellphones constantly emit signals in search of transmission towers, and those signals could be used to track drivers as they travel -- or sit in traffic.
Instead of the thousands of road sensors on major highways, there could be millions of cellphone signals painting a detailed portrait of the region's comings and goings, on Interstate 270 or in a suburban cul-de-sac.
"The melding is happening now," said Bryan Mistele, president and chief executive of Inrix, a Microsoft spinoff based in Kirkland, Wash., that develops real-time traffic information. Inrix takes data from government road sensors, adds it to GPS readings from commercial vehicles and taxis and combines it with other information that might affect traffic, such as sports, concert and school schedules, construction projects and weather reports.
The goal is not just to show real conditions but also to predict what will be, say, the best route to Dulles International Airport at 7 p.m. on a Friday or around Redskins traffic on a Sunday afternoon, Mistele said.
Anyone buying a new BMW with a navigational system gets Inrix service, and Virginia uses the company's data in its 511 traffic information system.
Mistele predicted that in five years, "everybody will have ubiquitous access to this information and will know the best time to leave in the morning and the best route to take home."
IntelliOne, an Atlanta-based company, has been operating a cellphone-based test in Tampa for 18 months and hopes to launch its service in other markets -- including Washington -- by year's end. And, yes, the company is interested in taking up Kaine's challenge.
Chief Executive Ronald Herman said national package delivery companies searching for ways to save fuel and cut time stuck in traffic are accelerating its research.
"Because the system would know your destination, it could tell you that taking an early exit onto an alternative road with four lights will actually save 15 minutes," he said. "That is where the level of data is."
Still others say using toll-tag readers to track car speeds is another promising approach. Additional tag readers placed over highways would read E-ZPass transponders without deducting a toll. Tracking the time it took a tag to travel between two readers would help determine cars' speeds. Sixty mph, no problem. Ten mph, time to find a different route.
Part of the Kaine program's mission is to learn how to make the Washington area's traffic quagmire a laboratory for new technology and get local companies involved.
A recent summit in Northern Virginia called by Homer and Aneesh P. Chopra, the state's technology secretary, tried to bring private-sector and government officials together. The $20 million, which faces an uphill battle in the General Assembly, would be a small inducement. The money would be split between Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, and regional technology groups would determine which firms got it.
In addition to improving commuters' options, having real-time information could also help government traffic planners tweak roadways and signals to pack more vehicles on each mile of highway.
"It all goes back to the data. You need to know quantitatively what is going on out there," said Catherine McGhee, co-director of the Smart Travel Laboratory at the University of Virginia.
"We can't tell you to take Route 50 because I-66 is blocked, because we're not confident of our data on 50," McGhee said. "Our goal is to tell you there's a problem and here's what to do about it -- like take Metro, or bus number 37, and your travel time will be this. Or go to the telecommuting place at the intersection of X and Y."
She said traffic data could be used to better control highway ramp merges, a major cause of jams. By using sensors monitoring highway flow, ramp signals could be timed to send the maximum number of vehicles onto highways without stopping traffic -- although that approach could leave hundreds of drivers waiting on on-ramps for long stretches.
McGhee said real-time information could also be used to adjust speed limits to create "artificial slowdowns" that, counterintuitively, would keep traffic moving faster. Traffic moving constantly at 45 mph is better than that speeding along stretches of open road, then ending in bottlenecks. Once traffic stops, it takes a lot longer to get going again.
Because 50 to 60 percent of congestion is caused by accidents and other incidents, being able to quickly find out where and when traffic is stopped would make quicker responses possible.
Better information can also help planners time traffic signals on arterial roads and respond to changing conditions, such as keeping shoulder lanes open later during days of heavy traffic.
"Flipping the switch once you have the data is the easy part," Chopra said. "Getting the info is the hard part."
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