Skip to main content

FHWA targets border congestion with technology

To reduce delays at US border crossings in New York, Michigan and Washington, the US Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has awarded US$256,470 for the use of innovative new technology that will provide information on wait times at border crossings and help manage delay by giving truckers advance notice of crossing conditions. FHWA’s Border Wait Time Deployment Initiative is designed to accelerate the adoption of innovative technology, such as sensors, to measure delay an
June 6, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
To reduce delays at US border crossings in New York, Michigan and Washington, the 324 US Department of Transportation’s 831 Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has awarded US$256,470 for the use of innovative new technology that will provide information on wait times at border crossings and help manage delay by giving truckers advance notice of crossing conditions.

FHWA’s Border Wait Time Deployment Initiative is designed to accelerate the adoption of innovative technology, such as sensors, to measure delay and wait times at land border ports of entry. The program supports the collection and dissemination of real-time traveller information to improve the reliability of goods movement across these borders.  

Under the initiative, FHWA will provide US$100,000 to the 1780 New York State Department of Transportation for its Niagara Falls International Rainbow Bridge, along with funding of US$95,920 to the 1688 Michigan Department of Transportation for technology at the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel Crossing with a grant. FHWA will also award US$60,550 to the Whatcom Council of Governments (WCOG) in Whatcom County, Washington, for the Booth Integration project. All of these research projects will use dynamic message signs and advance traveller information systems to convey the border wait times.

In recent years, trucker wait time and unexpected delays have been identified as an impediment to the free flow across the border, and the FHWA has undertaken several research initiatives aimed at measuring border delays at major land-border crossings.

Related Content

  • Hertfordshire’s traffic control centre ‘improves congestion’
    March 13, 2013
    As part of a wider Hertfordshire County Council strategy to ease congestion across the county, the council is installing variable message signs to provide live incident information, managed by a centralised control centre at County Hall. The centre opened in October last year at a cost of around US$600,000 and is operated by eighteen staff, who monitor the county’s road network. If an accident occurs, traffic signals can be adjusted and messages displayed in a bid to redirect traffic ease congestion. Mainte
  • IBTTA: road user charge is the future
    March 16, 2022
    The US government’s cash injection for the nation’s bridges represents a step forward – but IBTTA’s Pat Jones suggests that states need to consider the benefits of road usage charging
  • San Francisco plans express lane network across Bay Area
    February 25, 2015
    Colin Sowman looks at plans to convert 240km (150 miles) of HOV/car pool lanes. While some authorities have debated the conversion of high occupancy vehicle lanes (HOV) into express or managed lanes allowing toll paying single-occupant vehicles to avoid congestion, San Francisco’s Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has acted. It is converting 240km (150 miles) of HOV/car pool lanes to express lanes and last fall the MTC’s Bay Area Infrastructure Financing Authority selected TransCore to d
  • Plan for Philadelphia's I-95 to 'safely and quickly reopen'
    June 15, 2023
    FHWA earmarks $3m to help and public transit capacity is boosted 'until further notice'