Traffic signs to alert motorists of tri-county delays By Chuck McGinness Tuesday, February 08, 2005 You're cruising down Interstate 95 in West Palm Beach, bound for the Miami airport to catch a flight for a dream European vacation. Little do you know about the trouble that lurks ahead — a 10-mile-long traffic backup near Fort Lauderdale because a tanker truck overturned and burst into flames near the Miami-Dade County line. South Florida's intelligent transportation system has the answer to make sure you don't miss the plane. The four traffic management centers that monitor major highways and arterial roads in the three-county area are sharing live video on incidents that affect regional travel and posting warnings on highway message signs. For example, signs in Palm Beach County will advise drivers of a closure on Florida's Turnpike in Broward or Miami-Dade counties. Regional messaging, as it's called, is the latest evolvement in a multimillion dollar, high-tech system designed to relieve congestion and make travel safer. "If we warn motorists early enough, they can use other routes," said Steve Corbin, ITS operations manager for the Florida Department of Transportation. "We want to use the signs at every opportunity so motorists feel like they're getting a return on their investment." To the average commuter, it may not seem like a major task for traffic managers to share information from the highway surveillance cameras. But once the technology was available it took months to break down political barriers to come up with a set of operating guidelines. Just as people from different areas have their own colloquialisms, the traffic management centers in the three counties and on the turnpike use different language on posting warning messages. And the large overhead signs on Broward and Miami-Dade highways are capable of flashing more information than the portable signs along I-95 in Palm Beach County. A committee of center managers came up with a set of standard operating guidelines for regional messaging. "If you go to a Miami sign, you'll see the same message as a Palm Beach sign for the same event," Corbin said. "The signs have to be clear to be useful." As South Florida's highways get more crowded, the number of incidents that affect travel across county lines is going to increase. For a 15-month period from June 2003 through August 2004, there were about 100 crashes that had a regional impact on drivers. A study will be done in a year to determine if regional messaging further decreases travel times. The Palm Beach County traffic management system along I-95 has helped reduce delays during I-95 closures by about 30 percent since it started in July 2003. Alerts on crashes inside the county will take priority over regional incidents, said Bob Murphy, project manager for the Palm Beach County traffic center. The Palm Beach County system will be expanding in a few months, adding 20 signs on roads leading to I-95. The signs will alert drivers to crashes on I-95 before they get on the highway. Some motorists have complained that the I-95 signs are confusing. The center hopes to reduce confusion by opening for public tours. "If we can get people in the facility to see how we operate, we'll get fewer complaints," Murphy said. The center provides information on I-95 driving conditions on a Web site, palmbeachcotraffic.org. Traffic information on other roadways is available on the 511 hot line and the state-sponsored Web site smartroute.com Copyright 2005, The Palm Beach Post |