ODOT unveils traffic monitoring website

[metro]

ODOT unveils traffic monitoring Web site
Journal Record
June 3, 2008

OKLAHOMA CITY – Motorists in Oklahoma’s two largest metro areas who wish to avoid traffic congestion no longer need a crystal ball to determine the best route – an Internet connection will provide all of the information they need.

Oklahoma Department of Transportation officials unveiled its new traffic monitoring Web site, www.oktraffic.org, at Monday’s Transportation Commission meeting.

Using 17 cameras in Oklahoma City and 12 in Tulsa, the Web site provides views of traffic conditions at the state’s major interchanges. ODOT Director Gary Ridley said route planning can save motorists time and money while reducing emissions and stress.“With the cost of gas on the rise, a few miles saved can make a lot of difference,” said Ridley. The cameras were installed as part of ODOT’s federally funded Intelligent Transportation System program, which provided $9 million for traffic monitoring systems in Oklahoma.

The ITS project includes the 18 electronic message signs already installed, which are used to provide up-to-the-minute information to drivers. The cameras were originally installed to help emergency responders and traffic management personnel. But after checking with the department’s legal staff about the privacy issues involved, ODOT has made the system available to the public on the condition that the images may not be recorded or used for any enforcement or litigation purposes. Steps were taken to ensure the cameras do not display images of private property alongside the state’s highways.

[SoonerDave]

Site must be swamped; got as far as a state map, then nothing else. Locked up.

Hope this is a good tool. If you want to see an example of an awesome state highway monitoring/traffic system, go take a look at Georgia Navigator :: Home. It may be one of if not the best system in the country; it has options for construction locations and durations, traffic counters at various critical points in the state, and a slew of traffic cams posted throughout the greater Atlanta core...

Glad to see OK getting one of their own!

[Kerry]

SoonerDave - you beat me to the Georgia Navigator web site. I use it almost everyday plus it is cell phone enabled. I can check out traffic on the freeway when I am sitting at a light. When coming into Atlanta on Sunday nights I can check Atlanta traffic conditions before I even get out of Macon. The ODOT web site is a nice start but I hope they don't think they are done.

[FRISKY]

Interesting. This might actually be good to see how the traffic is flowing on the morning commute before you get tied up in congestion.

[Kerry]

There doesn't appear to be as many cameras as Atlanta has but I use it when their is an unexpected back up and traffic comes to a stop. I can look on the cameras several miles ahead and then decided if I want to get off the interstate or stay on. If the accident is over the next hill I stay, if it is 3 miles down the raod I get off and I know which exit I can back on at.

[hipsterdoofus]

I wouldn't trust ODOT to put up a decent site...their own website is about the crappiest I've seen, and not informative to taxpayers at all...

[mmonroe]

HA! I knew they would have to come out with this eventually! We had a huge discussion about privacy concerns with all the cameras they were putting up!

///edit///

Didn't OU's ITS Lab make the site??/

[Kerry]

What privacy issues? If you are in a public place - like the freeway - you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

[Video Expert]

I wouldn't trust ODOT to put up a decent site...their own website is about the crappiest I've seen, and not informative to taxpayers at all...

My complaint is the horrible video quality these cameras have at night! Whatever CCTV company that got this contract sure stuck it to the taxpayers. Looks like the work of a typical alarm company with no clue about video. There is all kinds of fantastic low-light camera technology out there that is available at a low cost. There is really no excuse for these almost pitch black images at night, especially with the more than adequate amount of lighting at most of these interchanges.

[hipsterdoofus]

My complaint is the horrible video quality these cameras have at night! Whatever CCTV company that got this contract sure stuck it to the taxpayers. Looks like the work of a typical alarm company with no clue about video. There is all kinds of fantastic low-light camera technology out there that is available at a low cost. There is really no excuse for these almost pitch black images at night, especially with the more than adequate amount of lighting at most of these interchanges.

Its kind of like...City of San Francisco I think...put up something like 600 CCTV cameras that ended up being useless because they didn't capture enough frames per second to capture people walking across the screen.

I think its obvious from ODOT's own website that they are stuck somewhere around 1998 as far as technology goes....

[Kerry]

If Tom Elmore wants to do something productive he should be getting on to ODOT about their web site and not the I-40 relocation.

[hipsterdoofus]

If Tom Elmore wants to do something productive he should be getting on to ODOT about their web site and not the I-40 relocation.

I just think it would be nice if they had a good listing of their major projects on their website to keep them somewhat accountable to the public. Or if they DO have such a listing, making it where the average joe could go to their page and find it.

[Video Expert]

Its kind of like...City of San Francisco I think...put up something like 600 CCTV cameras that ended up being useless because they didn't capture enough frames per second to capture people walking across the screen.

I think its obvious from ODOT's own website that they are stuck somewhere around 1998 as far as technology goes....

Did you know that the city of San Francisco still has scores of cameras that they've already purchased and can't even deploy because of bandwidth issues? That's the main reason they can't get the frames per second you mentioned in your post. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that the integrator that got the SF contract wasn't qualified to do a project of that scope. Even the company that manufactures the actual cameras threw the integrator under the bus, and rightfully so.

[hipsterdoofus]

Did you know that the city of San Francisco still has scores of cameras that they've already purchased and can't even deploy because of bandwidth issues? That's the main reason they can't get the frames per second you mentioned in your post. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that the integrator that got the SF contract wasn't qualified to do a project of that scope. Even the company that manufactures the actual cameras threw the integrator under the bus, and rightfully so.

I think a lot of times what happens is that the buyer does not have someone qualified enough to discern what is needed and they get taken by vendors who will sell them anything. It COULD happen to anyone, but you have to learn from those experiences and get someone in your organization who knows what they are doing so it doesn't happen twice.

[metro]

Interesting. This might actually be good to see how the traffic is flowing on the morning commute before you get tied up in congestion.

Not necessary, I have a 4 block bicycle commute through downtown!

[MadMonk]

Not necessary, I have a 4 block bicycle commute through downtown!

Understandably not for you, but you often forget that not everyone lives (or wants to live) in the same area of their place of work.

[CuatrodeMayo]

Here we go again...




There are no cameras on the broadway extension, the northern half of I-44, I-235, and most of I-35.

This is useless for Edmond commuters.

[hipsterdoofus]

Here we go again...




There are no cameras on the broadway extension, the northern half of I-44, I-235, and most of I-35.

This is useless for Edmond commuters.

They should pay to put their own cameras in, they are rich...

[jsibelius]

But ODOT paid for these cameras. Not OKC. They should have included Edmond considering the Edmond area is growing by leaps and bounds. You can't wait until the growth has already happened. You have to plan ahead. I wish Edmond had done that with the left turn lanes, not that people know what to do with the ones we have now...

[hipsterdoofus]

But ODOT paid for these cameras. Not OKC. They should have included Edmond considering the Edmond area is growing by leaps and bounds. You can't wait until the growth has already happened. You have to plan ahead. I wish Edmond had done that with the left turn lanes, not that people know what to do with the ones we have now...

sorry...should have included [sarcasm] tags... (I live in Edmond)

[warreng88]

I am wondering how many wrecks this is going to cause by people not looking at home, but instead on their way to work... while they're driving. Hopefully people will do it from home and not on their I-phones.

[bombermwc]

So far it looks like it sucks. There aren't nearly enough cameras to make the system very useful. They only cover a few hundred feet of road, so a wreck can happen just out of site and no one would know. They need to triple or quadruple the number of cameras on each road and then have it centrally monitored. That way if something does happen then we know for real...and not in the terribly innacturate way MetroTraffic works. Plus, the cameras need to be video, not stills.

[metro]

Understandably not for you, but you often forget that not everyone lives (or wants to live) in the same area of their place of work.

It was a joke although true...

[hipsterdoofus]

So...consensus...more money well spent? They coulda filled a few more potholes with the cost of a bunch of cameras that don't do any good.

[Kerry]

I don't understand how google and microsoft can have real-time traffic info for OKC but ODOT can't.