Drivers across 14 states who regularly feel the toll of traffic congestion may soon see relief.
University researchers, in a federal partnership with traffic data collection company Inrix, are speedily working to alleviate traffic by mapping out 40,000 miles of traffic patterns in real time.
The Vehicle Probe Project (VPP), established in 2008 between the university, Inrix and the I-95 Corridor Coalition — an interstate partnership of transportation agencies and toll authorities — was renewed for an additional year under a $3.2 million Federal Highway Administration grant.
For the past three years, the partnership has provided software tools for traffic engineers and state transportation department officials to analyze how to better serve highway systems, whether through accident notification on highway signs to up-to-date travel time information.
“The renewal, the third since VPP’s establishment, underscores the success of this program — states find that it has helped them to provide traveler information through website updates, manage congestion and better understand how to use limited-access highways in the most efficient manner,” said Ali Haghani, civil and environmental engineering department professor and chair.
In this vast network of interstate highways, the university webs together data, acting as what Haghani calls “the administrative arm of the coalition.” With a proven track record in transportation analysis, the university won the spot for information validation from Inrix through a competitive bid against other schools.
“We basically ask: Is Inrix’s information actually useful?” Haghani said.
“We’ll go into various highways and put sensors for two weeks, download the data about traffic patterns and cross-check it with what Inrix has to say,” said Yashar Kardehdeh, a civil engineering Ph.D candidate who has been involved with the project from the get-go.
By the end of the year, drivers will be able to receive real-time traffic coverage on freeways in four more states — eight more than the project initially covered — and will cover 40,000 miles, after beginning in 2008 with just 1,500 miles of coverage.
The network, composed of billions of data points, has been accurate in a 2.5 MPH average over the last four years.
Kardehdeh hopes this traffic monitoring system will bring research traffic to the university by encouraging more traffic-monitoring research and attracting more grants and funds to the university.
“Just winning the bid in 2008 shows our capabilities — you have to be in the game to play it,” he said.
