Software Speeds Response To Road Accidents 100
coondoggie alerts us to research out of Ohio State University that could help authorities respond to car accidents more quickly and ease traffic back-ups at lower cost, particularly in rural areas. The software improves the efficiency of communications from in-road vehicle detection loops to transportation engineers monitoring conditions in order to improve traffic flow. Faster response to accidents and traffic jams could have huge payoffs: a 2002 study estimated that traffic jams cost the average city almost a billion dollars a year.
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Can I call you Dick, great, thanks Dick.
Yes, Dick, it's true, if you analyze enough stories, you find that there are only a few types of events.
Specifically, "$noun $verb" and often some number of "$adjective" or "$adverb" or more "$noun" and "$verb" fields.
Of course, this all obscures the fact that when stuff happens, it's news, and if people care about it, it's news worth reporting. This story involves stuff happening (specifically, researchers found a way to write software which will help re
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I would personally say that slowing down for an accident on the shoulder or someone changing a tire is a saftey issue though, and not obstructing traffic.
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Another idea I've heard of for solving the traffic jam problem is, rather than minimum speed limits, just have a variable maximum speed limit. Basically, replace all the signs that say "55" with electronic signs that would say "55" most of the time, but if there's an accident, you lower the limit a few miles before the accident, say to 50 then 45 then 40. So by the time you get there, everybody is already going slower anywa
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I don't deserve the credit for most of that- I'm a software engineer working in central services, mainly on the business end of things. Closest I got was writing the software for Office of Civil Rights to check up on the contractors working on OTIA III to make sure local companies were getting the bridge building business and paying the right rates to their employees.
Another idea I've heard of for solving the traffic jam
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I'll second the kudos offered above.
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A similar problem exists with the
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I don't believe there would be significantly more accidents, but for most of I-205 it'd be against our current policy of slowing down traffic in urban areas. I believe that there is a plan in the works for the southern end, but they're waiting to finish the third lane between I-5 and Oregon City first (that's the construction mess you see at the Tualatin interchange currently, increasing traffic flows for the I-5/205 interchange and earthquake upgrades for the overpasses in that area).
The south end used to be 65, then they reduced it to 55 before the construction began. I'm totally OK with that, and would not want it increased back to 65 before the construction is finished. Is that policy you mentioned just an ODOT policy, or state law? Whose decision is it? It looks like Washington does the same kind of speed reduction near Vancouver, but their speeds are 60/70 instead of 55/65; would increasing Oregon's speed to match that be a bad idea?
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To be effective, you would want to lower the limit some distance *before* the bottleneck to lessen the rate that new cars came in to the affected area. This means that you would be changing limits on areas that don't appear to most drivers to have a traffic problem. In my experience, most people don't slow down until they absolutely have to - even when they can see sto
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You can put out signs saying whatever you want. It doesn't mean people wi
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That would be the high infrastructure cost. However the better counter companies offer wireless connections, et
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That would be the high infrastructure cost. However the better counter companies offer wireless connections, ethe
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I noticed that a recent humpback that washed up on shore two months ago got a bulldozer instead of dynamite...
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Yeah...that's gonna work out really well for the majority of us who have 'real jobs' out there.
Let's see, I'm in southern Louisiana. When it isn't raining (wait, that happens pretty every afternoon), the summer temperatures are easily in the 90's with humidity in
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One of my main points about riding a bike is that is is often faster than a car because you are not stuck in traffic. For some people who commute long distance without traffic a bicycle might not work.
Yeah, you're gonna really look professional after you get to work, sweat soaked or wet from rain.
Most people who commute on a bicycle change when they get to work.
Not to mention that you'll likely have to get
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Is it true that the state of Massachusetts is using large tarps to cover accidents so there would less rubbernecking", hence less accidents? [issuesource.org]
According to an AP story from February 23, The Massachusetts Highway Department is indeed using "large portable screens" to obstruct drivers' views of accident sites and decrease rubbernecking. The state has nearly 30 of these tarps, seven feet tall and up to 30 feet wide. The screens are assembled in five to 10 minutes, and, according to the Highway Department, have been used in about 15 accidents since their implementation in December of last year. The total cost for the current amount of screening equipment is just under $38,000. "Most of our feedback has shown they've been pretty effective," James Carlyle, a spokesperson for the Highway Department, told The Stamford Advocate. "It's no silver bullet for congestion, but it's been helping."
Last Updated: 25 Apr 2005
February 23, 2005 Here's an article from the Boston Globe [boston.com]
It says they were assembled in house & (then Governer) Mitt Romney brought the idea to their attention. Each set of screens costs $1,300 bucks, which, considering their benefits, seems cheap enough to me.
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" What is more likely do result in death and injury: being deployed to Iraq or driving to work every day? Driving to work."
Depends on your branch of service and military specialty.
There is a difference between fobbits and the folks who go out and kick ass, or expose themselves to danger because our strat
They key to success: Aim low. (Score:5, Funny)
WTF? Where's the editing? (Score:2)
I had the same thought (though not phrased as amusingly). Then I bravely clicked the link and found that nowhere in the story nor on Coifmans website does it EVER say the word "rural". In fact it talks about implementations in Ohio CITIES and near UC Berkeley.
Excellent editing job, guys.
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Would there be a way to electronically 'spoof' these buried loops in the streets to mess with the speed stats....or traffic signals? Some kind of black box you could attach to the underside of your car to mess with these things?
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The intersection of US 56 and US 59 in Kansas was infamous for nasty accidents th
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If it weren't for that Henry Ford crazy and his "mass production" we could have put these traffic congestion problems off a good 10-20 more years.
And if that other silly American, John Hetrick, hadn't invented airbags, maybe people would drive more safely.
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By the time a physical system gets deployed to even half this ridiculously large and independent (read: stubborn) country, it's already become obsolete.
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Riiiiight. That's why no technical innovation has ever come out of America. We're just a simple folk, boss, we'er happy with our horse-driven carriages and superstitious peasantfolk.
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Re:About time. (Score:4, Insightful)
Back on topic...
With the vast majority of major American cities possessing some of the shittiest public transit in the developed world, I see this innovative idea as yet another cash sink-hole that ignores the real problem. Whether or not you believe all the peak oil arguments, the fossil fuel environmental impact arguments, or whatever, it is pretty hard to argue that congestion and accidents in general could not be reduced by making real investments in quality public transportation.
I have lived in three of America's biggest cities for several years each and NYC was the only one with decent mass transit. True, the traffic there sucked, but a system like this will not have an impact on NYC streets. Further improvements to mass transit will.
The L.A. mass transit system was beyond inept. No where I else that I lived is even worth mentioning.
Regards.
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That said, it's patently unfair to compare America's mass transit system with those of Europe or Asia. Those are typically high density cities in smaller countries. Los Angeles is large by population and size but it's overall density is fairly low. That means significantly higher infrastructure costs to create subways, rail lines, etc, since they have much longer runs. Further, since those runs don't connect it to the
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> horse-driven carriages and superstitious peasantfolk.
Technical innovation has come from 0.01% of the population of America. The rest of them are amongst the world's most superstitious, if official church attendance figures are to be believed. If popular culture is anything to go by they certainly do `biggest is best` but I think I'll be sticking to art (music, films, lit
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Because nothing says "discriminating taste" quite like discrimination on country of origin instead of content.
Look into non-corporate independant work in each of those three categories and you'll see that talent and lack thereof are most certainly not chained to any one nationality.
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US church attendance figures aren't especially high; there are a half-dozen European countries with higher ones.
If popular culture is anything to go by they certainly do `biggest is best` but I think I'll be sticking to art (music, films, literature) from outside the States if you don't mind.
Then you'll be missing out. You really think the US doesn't produce worthy music, films, o
Traffic as well (Score:2, Insightful)
There are systems like this (Score:2)
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But where is the cost savings (Score:1)
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I know those cones must go for at least 3.5 million each.
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People get two warnings to get the hell out of the way. If they don't comply, they get run the hell over.
It will be expensive at first, but only a few examples will have to be made before people stop being assshats.
Driver: there is a wreck up ahead
Passenger: Get out of here man.
Driver: Why?
- Sirens in background -
Passenger: We need to make way for emergency vehicles!
- Crunching metal sounds coming closer -
Driver: Fuck them! I wanna see
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- Tourism: If people visiting a city fail to move the tourists, their experience is not good and will not recommend anyone to come back.
- Buses: If buses (In some parts a government service) are stuck in traffic, they will consume more gas.
- Taxes: If your company takes longer to deliver packages or receiving them, less amount of items are sold and therefore both the company and the government lose.
- Roads: If heavy trucks get stuck in traff
bad budgeting (Score:3, Funny)
If this is really true, big cities are spending over $1B a year for traffic problems, they should stop buying them and spend that money elsewhere.
First thing's first (Score:2)
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I've always heard the same thing. However, "they" is my dad, who thinks that an accident is the end of the world and an opportunity for someone to cash in on suing you.
In the past when I have been in accidents, I've always left the car where it sat. As soon as the cops show up, they move the cars without looking at anything to get traffic moving again, so I've ju
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What're they doing, again? (Score:2)
Satnav (Score:1)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/4986432.st m [bbc.co.uk]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire
CALTRANS has had that for ten years (Score:3, Informative)
CALTRANS has had that operational on Bay Area and LA freeways for the last ten years.
Here's the current status for the SF Bay Area [ca.gov].
The detector loops on the freeways report speed and traffic density data ("70 MPH, 14 veh/30 seconds"). A map display at the local CALTRANS control center shows spots where there's an unexpected discontinuity with the previous section. The control center then turns on the appropriate traffic cameras, which have pan, tilt, and zoom, so they can get a close look at the problem. They they can send tow trucks, ambulances, police cars, fire trucks, road repair crews, cleanup crews, or whatever's needed.
You can watch much of the camera output, alhough, being an old system, it's RealPlayer. Most of the cameras are pointed in somewhat random directions, because they're usually just left pointing at whatever incident needed to be looked at last.
You can see the incident log at the CHP incident log site. The control center sometimes initiates entries, but the guys who actually go to the site finish them.
Typical entries:
1:09PM VEH STALLED IN LANES, PTY UNDER VEH WORKING ON IT
1:13PM CHP Unit Enroute
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Well... Google Maps does have traffic. Either it wasn't worth their time to import all that information, or they decided that the spaghetti of green, yellow and red got enough of the point across.
Ob. link: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=37.779399,-122. 419281&spn=0.76413,1.2854&z=10&om=1&layer=t [google.com]
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Yes, those are the CALTRANS cameras (Score:2)
Yes, those are the CALTRANS cameras. You can look at what CALTRANS centers are looking at, but the camera system, which is mostly analog, has a limited number of video paths and switching, so only some of the cameras are live at any time. They're for zooming in on trouble, not for constant surveillance.
a low tech approach (Score:2)
*willing to make exceptions for wrecks with people still in the cars
Average city? (Score:2)
It'll never happen in the U. S. (Score:1)
Calculating the size of Cars (Score:2)
I'm probably missing something here but how do they determine the length of the car when they don't know it's
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It's called occupancy [204.249.106.151].
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Link in post is outdated -- here's the new one! (Score:4, Interesting)
Biggest cause of traffic jams (Score:1)
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I'd write more but I'm typing this on my iPhone from the left lane on the 520 bridge. From all the honking you'd think somebody already caused an accident.
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But why buried loops? We have cell phones. (Score:1)