Smart cars, smart roads - traffic-management systems - includes related article on an upcoming Intelligent Transportation Society of American conference

Nation's Business, Feb, 1996 by Julie Candler

When the device, which interprets video signals from the cameras, detects a traffic incident, it alerts the staff at a transportation-management center. The staff members can then send emergency vehicles and advise approaching motorists - through variable - message signs and a special radio channel - to seek an alternate route.

The Image Sensing Systems equipment can also provide other information. "Each Autoscope monitors about six video cameras, which can tell you how many cars there are and how fast they are moving," says ISS's Magnuson.

From June 1 through Sept. 30, the Traveler Information Showcase at the Olympics will provide other types of information as well to thousands of visitors within a 200-mile radius. About 250 volunteers Will be supplied with hand-held, battery-operated communications devices - the Motorola Envoy and the Hewlett-Packard 200LX Palmtop - that will enable them to get continuous updates on traffic conditions, parking, and public transit, and to find out details about restaurants, stores, and hospitals. About 80 motorists will be given in-vehicle navigation and guidance devices - made by Siemens Intelligent Transportation Systems, of Auburn Hills, Mich. - that receive radio signals and store maps and other data on compact discs.

At the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 300 rooms will have interactive televisions that will carry information from the transportation-management center, and interactive kiosks will be set up at Hartsfield International Airport.

Another ITS pilot project is being handled by Rockwell Transportation Systems, a division of Rockwell International, in Anaheim, Calif. The traveler-information and traffic-management project, under a $33 million federal contract that teams the company with the Michigan Department of Transportation, also involves small-business subcontractors. It is the nation's first attempt to integrate an urban system with a suburban one, linking ITS centers in Detroit and Troy.

One small-business member of the team, the Detroit engineering consulting firm Scales and Associates, redesigned the computer facility and operations center for the project. The changes helped expand the ITS coverage from 32 highway miles, with 10 closed-circuit cameras in Detroit. to 180 highway miles and 145 cameras throughout the city and suburbs.

Here are some other developments on the intelligent-transportation frontier:

Weather Samplers

Surface Systems, Inc., of St. Lows, is producing sensors that are installed in highway pavement. Working in tandem with roadside atmospheric sensors, the Surface Systems devices measure temperature, road conditions, and the amount of de-icing chemical on the pavement. The information is routed to a weather center, which then issues forecasts to motorists and to snow- and ice-control crews.

On-Board Navigation

Rockwell Automotive, another division of Rockwell International, in Troy, is producing a navigation device that can guide drivers, turn by turn, to a specific address entered into the system. Called PathMaster, it employs a satellite-based global-positioning system, a computer voice, and a map on an easy-to-read screen to show exactly where the vehicle is at all times.