Mar 17, 2010

(NECN: Cape Cod) - If you are brave enough to drive to the Cape during the summer season, you already know what a traffic nightmare the experience can truly be. But, a new high-tech gadget could be the ticket to a more enjoyable trip.

The iCone is designed to help alleviate congestion and give transportation officials a better idea of how roadwork affects traffic.

A global positioning system, a speed radar and a wireless connection transmit information on traffic conditions to an online map and electronic signs to warn motorists of delays in crossing the bridge, which has been restricted to one lane in each direction for repairs by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Cape Cod Times reporter Patrick Cassidy joins NECN for a discussion.

A Week of Mostly Ups

The week started pretty good. Our construction contractors have been doing a great job with the work, and we got these nifty iCones that tell expected wait times or delays while you are traveling towards your destination, or on their website.

The iCone deployment provides real-time traffic delays off of the Cape to the Massachussets DOT Smart Message boards, which are located located along Rte. 6W from Barnstable to Sandwich.

We will alert people via email (click here to go to our sign-up page), Twitter and our Facebook page, all the public has to do is sign up for one of these methods.

To their credit, Mass DOT has been responsive to this situation and a great partner in coming up with a solution so their smart boards continue to read correctly into the future of this project.

If you want to know how traffic is, there is also updates by those (on Twitter) who travel the bridge multiple times daily.

On Wednesday, it took an extra 30 seconds to get across the bridge just as rush hour was beginning. A few taps of the breaks to keep those workers safe, but all-in-all a pretty smooth journey over the bridge.

Drums feed real time data to MA DOT Smart Message boards

Cape Cod iCone Map

Above is an example of the real-time data provided by iCone. Courtesy of the iCone website.

The US Army Corps of Engineers announced Tuesday that Work Safe Traffic Control Industries, Inc. successfully deployed six (6) “iCone” drums along Route 6W on the Cape yesterday, Monday, March 15, 2010.

The drums are currently providing real time traffic delays off Cape to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MA DOT) Smart Message boards located along Route 6W from Barnstable to Sandwich.

According to the company’s site, an iCone drum locates itself, monitors traffic speed and links the information to the Internet. Individual drums detect, average and transmit speeds and offer high accuracy positioning through GPS, allowing the units to identify exact lane closures.

SAGAMORE — Cars and trucks whizzed by a phalanx of orange-and-white striped barrels approaching the Sagamore Bridge yesterday.

Tucked against a nearby sign, one of the plastic construction drums appeared brighter than the others. Meet the iCone, a barrel nearly indistinguishable from its more beat up brethren.

But it’s what’s inside the iCone that counts.

Along with five other barrels positioned just off the westbound shoulder at half-mile intervals from Exit 2 to the bridge, the iCone is part of a new high tech system — the first of its kind in the state — to help alleviate congestion and give transportation officials a better idea of how roadwork affects traffic.

A global positioning system, a speed radar and a wireless connection transmit information on traffic conditions to an online map and electronic signs to warn motorists of delays in crossing the bridge, which has been restricted to one lane in each direction for repairs by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The bridge work has irked many motorists since it began in September. On busy weekends, backups have stretched for miles and, despite a winter respite, lane restrictions are expected to continue through at least the spring.

“It’s looking good for no return in the fall,” Frank Vilkas, Army Corps project engineer for the bridge work, said of the likelihood that the repairs can be completed by the summer.

The contractor working for the Army Corps rents all six iCones from Work Safe Traffic Control Industries Inc. at a cost of $9,600 or about $53 a day for each barrel, Army Corps resident engineer Maurice Beaudoin said.

The price might be less if the rental period was longer, but the Army Corps only plans to use the barrels for two months, Beaudoin said.

The Cape iCone system is the only one the company has up and running right now and is one of its first full deployments of the technology, Work Safe vice president Debbie Ricker said.

The smart barrels calculate the average speed of passing traffic and quickly update the map online, she said. Data collected from the barrels also can be used by state officials to meet demands from federal transportation officials for analysis of how road work affects traffic, she said.

It took about a half-hour to set up the six Cape-based barrels Monday, said iCone managing partner Ross Sheckler. “Last year, we probably did two or three dozen jobs,” he said.

The manufacturer’s online map showed other barrels yesterday on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco; one in Salt Lake City, Utah; and one outside of Syracuse, N.Y.

When viewing the online map, the barrels show up as green, yellow or red depending on how fast traffic is flowing. Orange reflects an unknown status and gray indicates the equipment was recently turned off.

By today, Sheckler expected to have everything up and running, sending close to real-time information to three electronic signs set up by the Massachusetts Highway Department on the Cape-side approach to the bridge.

“It’s not taking your speed,” he said, addressing any concerns that the barrels could be used by the police to bust speeders. The radar averages the speed of all the cars that pass in a minute, he said, noting the iCone system does not snap photos of passing motorists.

Besides alerting commuters to traffic patterns, the iCones have other possible benefits such as indirectly alerting public safety officials of accidents or other road hazards that may be causing traffic to slow down in the affected area, he said. Alerts could be sent to public safety workers if a problem is detected, he added.

“I think Mass Highway is going to use this more and more,” Sheckler said of the state’s enthusiasm for the technology.

Yesterday, state officials were testing the system and how it interacts with message boards. They hope to have the system fully functional today, Mass Highway spokesman Adam Hurtebise wrote in an e-mail to the Times.

Another one of the system’s features, Hurtebise noted, are cameras mounted on two of the message boards that link to the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority Web site.

Drivers heading off-Cape yesterday saw the iCones as a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the data could help some motorists avoid traffic delays. But, for those who can’t reschedule an off-Cape trip, the information has little value, said Sandwich resident Irene Papsy as she walked to her car in the parking lot of the Christmas Tree Shops at the foot of the bridge.

Continuing the work year round to finish it faster might be more useful, she said.

“My personal feeling is that they should do (the bridge work) when the tourists are here, too,” she said.

You can bet that not many of the more than 30,000 drivers making their way through the
traditional traffic jams to the Rose Bowl football game in Pasadena, Calif. on New Year’s Day
noticed the highway cones along the route.After all, everyone is familiar with those ubiquitous
bright orange-and-white barrels that are placed along roadways to mark construction zones,
accidents, detours and the like. But some of these cones were special.They were stuffed
full of high-tech sensors that..

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