Skip to main content

City of Sugar Land to implement wireless detection system

The City of Sugar Land, Texas, a growing suburb of Houston, has opted to use Trafficware’s state-of-the-art pod wireless detection system to implement detection upgrades along the city’s busiest roadways on US 90A and SH 6. With this contract the city will equip 18 of its largest multilane intersections with approximately 700 wireless pod sensors to provide the needed data collection capabilities for real-time performance measures of city arterials. Pods will gather data that can be used for analysis,
June 18, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
The City of Sugar Land, Texas, a growing suburb of Houston, has opted to use 5642 Trafficware’s state-of-the-art pod wireless detection system to implement detection upgrades along the city’s busiest roadways on US 90A and SH 6.

With this contract the city will equip 18 of its largest multilane intersections with approximately 700 wireless pod sensors to provide the needed data collection capabilities for real-time performance measures of city arterials.  Pods will gather data that can be used for analysis, design, and growth trends and provide the infrastructure needed for an adaptive signal system.

Claimed to be one of the most advanced traffic management systems in the Houston area, the Sugar Land’s intelligent transportation system (ITS) utilises the city’s wireless and fibre network, allowing every traffic signal to send and receive data to the traffic management centre, increasing the efficiency and safety of its traffic infrastructure.

Over the last two years, the City’s Public Works Department tested alternatives to its current loop and video detection systems in an effort to build the foundation for a smarter and more reliable data driven ITS.  Wireless detection became the preferred option because its increased range and more robust communication allowed for a simplified system that did not need or use repeaters and improved environmental performance through standing water, such as during heavy rain that many parts of the country including Houston experienced recently, as well as around obstacles.

Related Content

  • July 19, 2018
    Cost benefit: Toronto retimings tame traffic trauma
    Canada’s largest city reckons that it is saving its taxpayers’ money simply by altering the way traffic lights work. David Crawford reviews Toronto’s ambitious plans to ease congestion Toronto, Canada’s largest metropolis (and the fourth largest in North America), has saved its residents CAN$53 (US$42.4) for every CAN$1 (US$0.80) spent over a 2012-2016 traffic signal retiming programme, according to figures released by its Transportation Services Division. The programme covered 1,275 signals (the city’s
  • July 11, 2018
    Cost benefit: Toronto retimings tame traffic trauma
    Canada’s largest city reckons that it is saving its taxpayers’ money simply by altering the way traffic lights work. David Crawford reviews Toronto’s ambitious plans to ease congestion. Toronto, Canada’s largest metropolis (and the fourth largest in North America), has saved its residents CAN$53 (US$42.4) for every CAN$1 (US$0.80) spent over a 2012-2016 traffic signal retiming programme, according to figures released by its Transportation Services Division. The programme covered 1,275 signals (the city’s to
  • May 22, 2012
    Video developments in automatic incident detection
    David Crawford reviews technological progress with automatic incident detection Highway safety problems are likely to intensify given recent predictions of future traffic growth across the world. In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that currently over 30,000 deaths and 1.5 million injuries occur as the result of accidents on the nation’s roads each year. These figures will increase with the number of kilometres travelled each year in the US expected to gr
  • March 14, 2012
    Developing a wireless cooperative traffic management system
    The use by MDOT of 90-foot concrete poles on which to mount CCTV equipment reduces the number of poles needed to monitor a given area and incidences of occlusion