Listening to Traffic in the Hudson Valley

PR Log (Press Release) – Feb 24, 2010 – (Woodbridge, VA.)  SmarTek Systems shipped 136 of its SAS-1 Passive Acoustic Highway Traffic Sensors to be used by New York State’s Hudson Valley Transportation Management Center (HVTMC).  The HVTMC is using the sensors to provide additional information to travelers on the parkways and highways under its purview.  These improvements are designed to enhance motorist safety while helping to reduce traffic congestion and its environmental impact.  

The Hudson Valley Transportation Management Center gathers and distributes traffic data for highways in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess, Orange, Columbia, and Ulster counties in New York State.  The current projects are to install CCTV cameras and traffic monitoring sensors along the Hutchison River Parkway, the Cross County Parkway, the Sprain Brook Parkway, and the Saw Mill River Parkway to improve traffic monitoring equipment in the region.  The sensors and systems will give the HVTMC more information regarding current traffic conditions. In turn, the HVTMC will better provide assistance and information to the traveling public on routes to use to avoid congestion.

Due to the rocky terrain and extensive monitoring area, cellular modems are being deployed for traffic data collection.  Most sites are designed to be solar powered.  The SAS-1’s low power requirements for multilane monitoring ensures that reliable solar powered data collection can be provided in all temperature extremes and weather conditions prevalent in the Hudson Valley. Each SAS-1 Traffic Sensor provides per lane highway traffic volume, vehicle classification, lane occupancy (a traffic density function) and speed at user defined intervals suited for the communications medium.  

The economic downturn which has left many states and municipalities looking for alternatives to funding large highway projects in efforts to increase highway and freeway capacity.   Installing “smarter” traffic management equipment, or intelligent transportation systems, has been a way to increase traffic flow along major highways and traffic arteries, usually at less than 1% of the cost of adding additional lanes with more pavement.   The real time traffic data allows traffic managers to respond to accidents or other incidents, and the general public can take alternative routes or delay travel until routes are cleared.

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