Skip to main content

Remote-monitoring system helps keep Arizona city moving

The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) has installed a wireless communication system allowing technicians in Phoenix to monitor conditions and adjust signal timing accordingly on State Route 347 through Maricopa. The system has a series of infrared and video cameras installed at each SR 347 intersection, allowing an ADOT technician in Phoenix to see exactly what is happening and modify the length of traffic signals to improve traffic flow. Another part of the system automatically monitors tra
December 8, 2016 Read time: 1 min
The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) has installed a wireless communication system allowing technicians in Phoenix to monitor conditions and adjust signal timing accordingly on State Route 347 through Maricopa.

The system has a series of infrared and video cameras installed at each SR 347 intersection, allowing an ADOT technician in Phoenix to see exactly what is happening and modify the length of traffic signals to improve traffic flow.

Another part of the system automatically monitors travel times between intersections using wi-fi signals, such as those from smartphones. That anonymous information can alert ADOT technicians to delays.

Similar systems are used to remotely monitor traffic signals in Nogales, along State Route 77 in the Tucson area and in the Phoenix area.

The technology was installed this past summer in Maricopa. Over the coming months, researchers from the University of Arizona will evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the system.

Related Content

  • Enforcement suppliers highlight industry best practice
    March 15, 2012
    Major suppliers of enforcement technology highlight the countries, regions or cities that they consider to be leading the way in reduction of road traffic violations. The French government’s ambitious programme of enforcing traffic law violations has proven to be an unrivalled success and is continuing to bring improvements in road safety with innovative enforcement technology.
  • Urban utility
    July 24, 2012
    Steve Lane, Commercial Director at Triteq, talks about the successful deployment of ZigBee in Barcelona where a low-cost wireless metropolitan network for location and citizen services was established. The project, he says, demonstrates ZigBee's effectiveness as an urban communications system solution ZigBee is based on the IEEE radio frequency standard 802.15.4 - 2006 for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN), which provides a license-free radio frequency for a flexible, robust private wireless network. Z
  • Traffic management to the fore at Vision 2014
    December 8, 2014
    Colin Sowman reviews some of the traffic-related exhibits at the 2014 Vision Show in Stuttgart. Traffic was a major theme at this years’ Vision Show in Stuttgart and several manufacturers used the exhibition to highlight their traffic-related equipment and applications.
  • Preparing for unpredictable precipitation
    August 18, 2015
    ITS solutions are helping streamline winter road maintenance for Delaware and Illinois, two states that must deal with dynamic weather and varying snowfall totals. Andrew Bardin Williams reports. Wilmington and Newark (pronounced new-ark) are two vastly different cities that sit on opposite ends of Delaware. Newark is a sleepy university town of roughly 30,000 residents abutting the state’s western border with Maryland and Pennsylvania, and often gets confused with its larger namesake in New Jersey.