Transportation Blog

This Article was featured on the Traffic Technology.com website.  The Transportation Management Center (TMC) in Chattanooga uses the Telvent Active Traffic Management Systems (ATMS) Mist 5.0.

Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) commissioner, John Schroer, has officially opened a new Transportation Management Center (TMC) in Chattanooga, which will use the latest technology to monitor traffic trouble spots and keep drivers informed on real-time road conditions. TDOT staff will now be able to monitor 71 ‘SmartWay’ traffic cameras located along the region’s most heavily traveled corridors. They will also have access to 16 Variable Message Signs (VMS), 175 speed/congestion monitoring stations to spot traffic flow interruptions and a city-wide highway advisory radio station broadcasting on the 1620 AM frequency. Chattanooga television stations also have access to live feeds from the TDOT SmartWay cameras.

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Toll system suppliers are considering service structures and technologies needed to address issues of social exclusion in open road tolling. Jason Barnes asked Telvent's Pat McGowan to explain moves to address the needs of all toll customers

The virtues of free flowing 'open road tolling' (ORT) are obvious to toll operators and many road users. But in eagerness to use ORT to make transport infrastructure work better it can be too easy to discount those who lack access to the technology due to personal, social or economic circumstances.

Social exclusion is not a new issue in tolling. It has evolved over decades and has its roots in the introduction of electronic toll collection, says Telvent Transportation North America president Pat McGowan. As existing schemes migrate to ORT and other new projects come on stream it is a problem that is going to become more acute and more widespread. This is an issue which Telvent, among others, has been looking at very seriously with a view to providing solutions, he adds.

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House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John L. Mica said Wednesday that plans to produce a long-term surface transportation bill will be postponed until next year because the packed legislative schedule does not leave enough time before the holidays.

The Florida Republican noted there is still “plenty of time” before the current extension (PL 112-30) of surface transportation authorization expires at the end of March. He said a bill might not materialize until the beginning of February.

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