Updated: The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is hoping their “Intelligent Transportation System” (ITS) will help you get to where you’re going a little quicker.
SDOT debuted the ITS signs on Monday, which tell you how long it will take to get to different parts of the city. “This information allows drivers to make better decisions en route to their destination and, as a result, improves commute times and reduces pollution,” the SDOT blog states. Marybeth Turner with SDOT tells us the sign in our area is on Holman Road at 14th Ave NW.
From SDOT:
“There are many components to the Intelligent Transportation System, designed to reduce vehicle delay by 40 percent, travel time by 10 to 25 percent, emissions by 5 to 8 percent, and fuel usage by 10 percent. When the system is completed in March, there will be 22 dynamic information signs, 80 vehicle license detectors (to collect travel times), 130 traffic cameras, solar-energized traffic volume counters, upgraded computer-controlled traffic signal equipment, and fiber optic connections. Traffic signals in three corridors automatically adjust their own timing according to traffic volumes—First Avenue South, Fourth Avenue South, and 15th Avenue West. When bridges open for marine traffic—and close to motor vehicles—traffic signals automatically adjust. Traffic signals in major corridors give priority to emergency vehicles, buses and light rail.
The ITS signs will light up with traffic times during commute hours from 6 to 9 a.m. and 3 to 7 p.m. When we drove by the Crown Hill sign this morning just before 7 a.m. and nothing was displayed. We have contacted SDOT for information on why the sign wasn’t lit up. Turner tells us that according to the project manager, there was “a network outage in the Ballard area this early morning. It was fixed by 7:30 and travel times were then available on the sign.”
SDOT also has an online component of the ITS with drive times, construction information and other alerts found here. And there is an iPhone app with all the same data.
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Two questions:
1) The local traffic cams (e.g. those linked in the MyBallard banner at top) seem to be turned off at 9PM (at least last night) — why is that?
2) Potential privacy issue: is the license plate number information captured by the automatic recognition systems stored, where it might later be accessed, or is it deleted immediately after use for the travel time calcs?
Two questions:
1) The local traffic cams (e.g. those linked in the MyBallard banner at top) seem to be turned off at 9PM (at least last night) — why is that?
2) Potential privacy issue: is the license plate number information captured by the automatic recognition systems stored, where it might later be accessed, or is it deleted immediately after use for the travel time calcs?
The plate numbers are “not recorded” WINK WINK into a database…
Regarding your #2: I asked SDOT this a while ago, and received this reply: “… once the data has been matched to create a travel time, the data is discarded. Since this is new technology to the City of Seattle, a policy to address the privacy and data handling issue is currently in development.”