Skip to main content

Multi-million dollar system to ease Columbus’ congestion

Columbus, Ohio is to benefit from a US$38.1 million traffic management system to replace the one installed in the 1970s to allow the city to respond more quickly to problem areas and speed up travel throughout Columbus and even in its suburbs. The new system will wrap all signals into a single network. More data will funnel to new software in the traffic-management center, where operators can decide how to handle traffic congestion. Nearly 500 miles of fibre-optic cable will run to most traffic signals, and
April 3, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
Columbus, Ohio is to benefit from a US$38.1 million traffic management system to replace the one installed in the 1970s to allow the city to respond more quickly to problem areas and speed up travel throughout Columbus and even in its suburbs.

The new system will wrap all signals into a single network. More data will funnel to new software in the traffic-management center, where operators can decide how to handle traffic congestion.

Nearly 500 miles of fibre-optic cable will run to most traffic signals, and others will sync wirelessly with the new system. The number of cameras posted around the city will triple from fifty to 150, while six, 60-inch monitors will display camera feeds and other data will go up in the new command centre.

“It definitely will make the commute smoother,” said Patti Austin, a city planning and operations administrator.

Upgraded software will give the city power to move traffic along during big events, Austin said.

“We’re pretty limited in what we can do certain times of day,” said project manager Ryan Bollo. “This new software will be able to cover whole corridors and have pre-timed systems we can run any time of day.”

Related Content

  • Automating enforcement of environmental zones
    July 27, 2012
    Amsterdam City Council has chosen to move away from manual enforcement of its environmental zone, which is intended to keep highly polluting goods vehicles out of the city centre, and is installing an automated, ANPR-based system. The signs are not much to look at: white with a red circle and the all-important word Milieuzone ('Environmental zone'). But these signs mean that Amsterdam's city centre is strictly off-limits to polluting goods traffic. At the moment compliance is monitored by special wardens wh
  • Dynamic lane closures cuts time, cost and congestion on Motorway roadworks
    March 17, 2014
    A combination of technologies is leading to major congestion and cost reductions during roadworks on the UK’s motorway network. Innovative construction programme scheduling technology and the deployment of moveable barriers has achieved substantial savings of money and time on UK motorway roadworks managed by the Highways Agency (HA). This combination has set the scene for a new generation of road usage analysis tools. The HA’s objective was to reduce the congestion caused by lane closures during roa
  • Whim launch in Birmingham: new day dawning
    June 4, 2018
    MaaS Global’s Whim mobility service is expanding with its first launch outside Finland – and has chosen the UK’s second city as its base. Adam Hill reports from Birmingham
  • Cable cars come of age in trans-continental expansion
    April 30, 2015
    David Crawford explores a high-level option of public transport. Sharing its origin with that of ski lifts at winter sports resorts in the European Alps, urban aerial cable transport is attracting growing interest as a low-footprint, low-energy alternative to conventional public transport that can swoop over ground-level traffic congestion.