August 4, 2006

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Traffic data gaps soon to be filled

Ariel Hart - Staff

Metro Atlanta drivers should finally have updates on highway traffic jams inside the entire Perimeter, if new technology plans pan out.

The state Department of Transportation is set to add coverage on pieces of Ga. 400 and I-85, filling the network's last gaps for gathering trip-time data inside the Perimeter.

DOT uses the highway data to alert drivers to congestion, coordinate HERO road safety units and for long-term planning on how to ease bottlenecks.

Most of the metro highways have Navigator, a web of sensors installed a decade ago to manage traffic during the Olympics.

Some of the gaps will be filled by either solar-powered radar sensors from company Traffic.com or by Cellint, which tracks the speed of cellphones traveling in cars.

And, "From what I know of the plans over the next several years, the focus is going to be on expanding outside the Perimeter," said Monica Luck, a spokeswoman for DOT's Transportation Management Center.

The gap on I-85 near the airport is expected to be laid with Navigator's underground sensors and cameras linked with fiber-optic cable.

The Ga. 400 piece will use Traffic.com, which be online within months. While it doesn't have the information-rich camera feed of Navigator's usual system, it is far cheaper and quicker to install.

Outside the Perimeter, the last of the traffic alert signs that went dark along Ga. 400 are supposed to come back online with trip-time updates after Cellint gets data flowing, said Mark Demidovich, assistant state traffic operations engineer. Cellint doesn't know whose cellphones it is tracking.

Service from Traffic.com, which operates in more than a dozen states and has 240,000 subscribers, comes with a twist. While it's giving information to Navigator, it's using the data too.

It makes money by letting advertisers target ads to customers they know will be passing nearby. It also sells information to the Weather Channel and other users.

Drivers hear or see the ad when they call in, or get the alerts telephoned to them at a certain time, or e-mailed or sent out to their PDA.

"Joe's Pizza on Exit 16 of some interstate cannot afford, for example, to perhaps advertise on television in the Atlanta market," said David Jannetta, president of Traffic.com.

"But if he's able to somehow buy an advertisement that would go out on a cellphone or a PDA to anyone who's getting off of that Exit 16 between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. every night, then all of a sudden that can be an affordable ad buy for him."

While DOT eventually hopes to put its regular Navigator equipment on the whole network, it is now putting wireless systems both inside and outside the Perimeter, Demidovich said.

"Without them, we're going to take four to five more years to expand our coverage," Demidovich said. Navigator also provides route-specific traffic updates, but he said he didn't see Traffic.com as competition.

"I look at it as a partnership," he said. "It's a chance for both of us to expand our coverage.