“We all know that Midtown at rush hour is always packed,” Bloomberg said. “The technology will allow traffic engineers to immediately identify congestion choke points as they occur and remotely alter traffic signal patterns to begin to clear up Midtown jams at the touch of a button.”
Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration Victor Mendez, and Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) Commissioner Carole Post joined the mayor to unveil the system.
In addition to managing traffic congestion, the real-time system will allow the Police and Fire departments to coordinate with the Traffic Management Center more smoothly.
“We’re also helping to save lives by saving precious minutes as police, fire crews, and other responders rush to save those in need of help,” Mendez said.
The real-time monitoring system includes 100 microwave sensors, 32 traffic video cameras, and E-ZPass readers at 23 intersections to measure and record traffic in the area.
“No other city has had this combination of technology,” Sadik-Khan said.
Currently half of the signalized intersections, totaling 6,200, are computerized and the mayor hopes to have all of the city’s intersections computerized and fully integrated with the Traffic Management Center by 2013. The mayor says this will take time, and it will take money.
The installation of the current system cost $1.6 million, with $600,000 funded by the Federal Highway Administration and $1 million from the city. Commissioner Sadik-Khan says in the last four years they have invested $296 million in traffic control and technology, as a part of a $4.3 billion project to upgrade the city’s infrastructure.
“I think there’s no place that needs it more than Midtown Manhattan, with 110 square blocks of some of the most congested streets throughout the city,” Sadik-Khan said.
The DOT will review the system for six months before expanding or altering the project. Taxi GPS movement outside of the 110 square block area will also be looked at to give the DOT a broader range of data. Sadik-Khan says the next area to monitor closely would be “another chunk of Midtown.”
“By using real-time algorithms, our traffic engineers actually have the tools they need to identify a problem and respond in real time,” Sadik-Khan said. “Right now you can you can see real-time information on 238 traffic cameras city-wide, and you can find it on your iPad, you can find it on your iPhones, your smartphones—you can look at it before you get on the road, or while you’re on the road.”
All the real-time information will be made available to motorists and software developers for usage on hand-held devices. The data is transmitted wirelessly to the Traffic Management Center via the NYC Wireless Network developed and managed by the DoITT.
However, being able to monitor and reroute traffic in real time does not mean the end of traffic jams.
“If there’s a major accident, we can change the lights to get you around, but we can’t tie up the rest of the city just to solve that one problem,” Bloomberg said. “You can reroute traffic ... but you can’t stop all other traffic. So there will still be a traffic jam, it’s just that you can mitigate it to some extent.”
