Skip to main content

Virginia installs ATM to ease congestion on I-66

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has begun work on installing an active traffic management |(ATM) system on interstate 66 through Arlington, Fairfax and Prince William counties from the Washington, DC line to Route 29 in Gainesville. Designed and built by TransCore, the system is intended to improve safety and incident management and will include new sign gantries, shoulder and lane control signs, speed displays, incident and queue detection, and increased traffic camera coverage.
November 17, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The 1747 Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has begun work on installing an active traffic management |(ATM) system on interstate 66 through Arlington, Fairfax and Prince William counties from the Washington, DC line to Route 29 in Gainesville.  

Designed and built by 139 TransCore, the system is intended to improve safety and incident management and will include new sign gantries, shoulder and lane control signs, speed displays, incident and queue detection, and increased traffic camera coverage.

Sensors, traffic cameras and overhead signs will enable VDOT to change the signs to give drivers real time advance information on upcoming traffic, crashes, congestion or closed lanes. VDOT hopes that getting people out of closed lanes before they reach incidents will make the slowdowns less abrupt and less severe. If there is standard traffic, the signs could be changed to give drivers a warning about exactly how far away the congestion begins.

Although ATM is a relatively new concept in managing traffic in the United States, it is popular in Europe, such as the Highways Agency’s smart motorways project in the UK.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • TransCore and KLD agree on distribution rights
    August 6, 2013
    TransCore and KLD have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly pursue projects and provide TransCore with exclusive distribution rights for KLD's adaptive control decision support system (ACDSS). The deal means that US Departments of Transport already using TransCore’s TranSuite advanced traffic management system (ATMS) can now integrate KLD’s adaptive control decision support system (ACDSS) into the system to deliver an adaptive control strategy that can be used as part of a larger area-wide traffi
  • Intelligent intersection control
    April 12, 2013
    Intelligent intersection control systems have a growing role to play in making urban traffic more efficient. Robin Meczes reports. The idea of every traffic light turning green as you approach it has long been a dream for many an urban driver – and none more so than those driving heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), which are slow and difficult to bring to a halt and then accelerate back to normal travel speed. But that dream has become a reality for some drivers in a small number of cities around Europe in the las
  • Mexico’s Durango-Mazatlan highway sets tunnel safety standard
    September 14, 2016
    Mauro Nogarin looks at the management of the longer tunnels on Mexico’s Durango-Mazatlan highway. In recent years the National Infrastructure Fund of Mexico has increased investment in the installation of ITS systems on selected highways to increase road safety. One such major investment is the 230km long Durango-Mazatlan highway which is 12m in width and has an average speed of 110km/h.
  • Intelligent Transport System for Australia's Monash Freeway
    May 14, 2013
    Sluggish peak-hour traffic on Melbourne's busiest road, the Monash Freeway, will flow about 20 km/h faster when new technology is introduced, thanks to a US$78.2 million cash injection from the Australian Government to help improve traffic flow, with the money to go towards installing and upgrading intelligent transport systems on a 34.5-kilometre stretch of the road in Melbourne's east. The commitment is intended to be matched by the Victorian government and will go towards technology such as variable spee