Skip to main content

Oregon DOT wins Best of ITS 2015 award

The Oregon Department of Transportation improved safety on OR 217 by implementing a variety of signage and roadway enhancements. OR 217 currently experiences traffic congestion during peak commute times because of high-density traffic and crashes. The project focused on reducing crashes, helping to clear crashes quickly when they do occur, and giving motorists the ability to make informed travel decisions about traffic flow and roadway conditions. Since collisions on a busy highway can bring traffic to a h
August 14, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
The 5837 Oregon Department of Transportation improved safety on OR 217 by implementing a variety of signage and roadway enhancements.  OR 217 currently experiences traffic congestion during peak commute times because of high-density traffic and crashes. The project focused on reducing crashes, helping to clear crashes quickly when they do occur, and giving motorists the ability to make informed travel decisions about traffic flow and roadway conditions. Since collisions on a busy highway can bring traffic to a halt, the improvements will also decrease crash-related congestion.  

Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has received the Intelligent Transportation Systems’ Best of ITS 2015 Award for project OR 217, which aimed to improve safety on the highway by implementing a variety of signage and roadway enhancements.
 
In 2013, ODOT replaced previous state-wide control system software with 32 Daktronics Vanguard professional software, along with Daktronics VF-2020 and VX-2420 dynamic message signs to establish a more automated advanced traffic management system (ATMS). The VX-2420s display advisory speed limits based on traffic congestion to achieve speed harmonisation, while the VF-2020s provide travel time information, crash and congestion data, road conditions and closures.

OR 217 experienced traffic congestion during peak commute times because of high-density traffic and crashes. The project focused on reducing crashes, helping to clear crashes quickly when they occur and giving motorists the ability to make informed travel decisions about traffic flow and roadway conditions.

Related Content

  • June 5, 2020
    Panasonic gets connected on The Ray
    A stretch of rural Georgia highway called The Ray is a particularly useful testbed for V2X technology. Panasonic’s Chris Armstrong tells Adam Hill what’s so special about it
  • July 17, 2012
    Development of cooperative driving applications for work zones
    The German AKTIV project is researching several cooperative driving applications for use in work zones. PTV's Michael Ortgiese details progress. The steep increases in traffic volumes predicted back in the early 1990s have unfortunately been proven to be more than accurate. In Germany, the AKTIV project continues to look into cooperative technologies' potential to reduce the impact of those increased traffic volumes and keep traffic moving despite limitations in infrastructure capacity.
  • June 1, 2016
    TomTom provides flexibility for Riyadh
    With five years of traffic disruption ahead and an inadequate traffic monitoring system, the authorities in Riyadh needed a solution – and quickly. In preparation for embarking on what is currently the world’s largest metro construction project, the Arriyadh Development Authority (ADA) in Riyadh needed to put in place measures to minimise the additional congestion and travel delays the five-year project would inevitably cause.
  • April 25, 2012
    Improving traffic flow with automated urban traffic control
    Alterations to traffic signals and variable message signs are being activated to reduce congestion as soon as it occurs, through a pioneering fully automatic UTC system. Jon Masters reports In the South Yorkshire town of Barnsley in England, strategies for dealing with traffic congestion have been devised from analysis of queue data, then made to work automatically: “This represents the future of ITS for urban traffic control,” says Siemens Consultancy Services senior engineer David Carr. Over a career span