Congestion continues to increase in Texas and the United States, leading to longer delays, higher fuel consumption and related crashes. Adding capacity to existing systems isn’t easy, so transportation agencies are relying on operations and maintenance strategies like active traffic management (ATM), a common strategy in Europe, to help manage congestion. In recent years, ATM in the United States has evolved from more traditional strategies to those using technology to manage traffic flow in this country.
ATM strategies combine integrated systems with new technology and techniques, including comprehensive sensor systems, real-time data analysis, and automated deployment of necessary actions. This helps optimize system performance quickly and without the delay that occurs when operators have to manually deploy operational strategies. When various ATM strategies are implemented together, they can help fully optimize a facility and provide measurable benefits to both the transportation network and the traveling public.
“We have studied emerging ATM strategies in the Transportation Policy Research Center to determine which can be most useful in Texas,” explains Beverly Kuhn, head of TTI’s System Reliability Division. Kuhn leads the Technology Research Area in the center. “As part of that effort, we highlighted related technology and policy implications in our policy brief to hopefully facilitate the successful use of ATM in Texas.” | Read the complete policy brief