Comments on: Smarter Highways

By: Ryan Avery

Ryan Avery — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:41:36 +0000

You’ll find that getting a driver’s license in Sweden is timely and costly. I think attending a school is required. I’m not sure how many hours it takes, but you can expect the cost to get your license to be around 3000-4000kr (~500-600 USD). This is just what I recall from living there a few years ago, but I doubt it’s changed much. That said, you can drive on some foreign licenses. I rented vehicles and drove just fine on my US (Washington state) license.

By: Shavennah

Shavennah — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:51:30 +0000

And even fewer can front the money, I’m guessing. I remember in Germany getting your license costed on the order of thousands of euros

By: josh

josh — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:11:11 +0000

Now if they could just track Good-to-Go passes by VIN instead of license plate….

A friend recently had the state send him new plates for his car. He put on the new plates, and promptly got a toll violation on the bridge.

The state knows enough to associate the plate with the VIN, and the plate with a pass, but not enough to automatically update the pass system when they change someone’s plate number on them.

By: pam

pam — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:47:59 +0000

i think the point is to keep traffic flowing at a reduced but “free-flow” speed, so that vehicles will not have to merge into stopped traffic. Of course it depends on the normal-ish driver agressiveness curve, which implies that most drivers will choose to merge before the last minute. It’s true that this system won’t eliminate boorish behavior…

By: pam

pam — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:42:09 +0000

a speed differential above about 10mph between lanes is a safety hazard. Just think of the problem when a vehicle moving slowly attempts to pull into a lane moving fast. However, if the lanes are separated physically, or even with striping, the hazard is reduced.

By: Zed

Zed — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:36:05 +0000

You don’t have to take my word for it;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Number_Plate_Recognition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Traffic_Management

Britain also uses cameras to track the movement of every car in the country and keeps the data for 5 years, so their camera technology has gotten pretty advanced.

By: Anandakos

Anandakos — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:36:13 +0000

Oh, and remember we’re talking about variable speed control, enforcement of which by its nature must change with the changes in the signs. That can most easily be done with instantaneous measurements, not the average speed, which by definition is “average”.

Now I suppose you could do a logical integral by computing the elapsed time it “should” have taken the vehicle to cross the test zone using the two limits and then if it got there sooner, issue the ticket. But that is going to vary by where the car is between to notification signs when the speed changes. The driver may have been behind a larger vehicle at the time of change and unable to see the next changed sign until 300 feet before it.

By: Anandakos

Anandakos — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:25:16 +0000

If they are doing this reliably, they have conquered some pretty difficult computer science problems. Differences in illumination are one clear potential difficulty. And they have to take the photos when the vehicles are at very nearly the same distance from the camera in all of the stations, otherwise pattern matching will be difficult. I guess some radar must trigger the camera at the proper instant. But if you’re going to use radar to trigger it, why not just use it to measure the instantaneous speed?

And the obvious way to defeat such a system is to “muddy up” your plate.

I think RFID tags with the plate number or something like the Good To Go tags would be much more reliable and simpler.

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:42:02 +0000

We do have reversible lanes. They’re on I-5 between downtown and Northgate, and on I-90 between downtown and Bellevue (?).

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:37:32 +0000

Photo ID for speeding cars works great on highways. All you need is a camera, a stopwatch, and a calibrated distance. Take two photos a certain time interval apart, measure how far the car traveled between photos, and calculate the average speed (v=d/t). Simple.

By: tomas

tomas — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:41:17 +0000

sorry for messy comment. I hope you’ve got the idea..

By: tomas

tomas — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:36:54 +0000

Just looking into that video I can tell that we build highways wrong way.
You could pass way more traffic if instead of having 4 lanes one way, 4 lanes other way (4+4), have 3 lanes one way (mostly for merging in/out), 3 lanes other way, and 2 lanes in the middle for going long distance without many merging lanes for longer distances.
Lanes in the middle would be switching traffic direction based on time of the day.
In the video, you can see that the oncoming lanes are pretty much not used at all..

By: Mike Skehan

Mike Skehan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:12:33 +0000

Seattle drivers, being what they are, will marginalize the benefits of this system.
All it takes is about 5% jerks to screw things up.
Scenario: The red x and yellow merge arrow turn on for the two right lanes. People start to move over and merge, as intended, but the jerks see this as an opportunity to zip ahead to the last moment, then force their way back over(just like they do before NB I5, before Spring St. to make the reversible lanes).
Road Rage and endless traffic compression eddies begin!
Will WSP enforce the red X lane restrictions? I doubt it. And merging rules are meaningless now, so I hope it works out, but have my doubts.
Probably my biggest pet peeve along that stretch is the Columbia St on-ramp, NB-I5, when traffic is slow and the ramp is metered. Cars will pull out of the slow lane to charge ahead in the on-ramp lane to the last minute, then dart back in, cutting off someone else(usually a bus or truck), causing the rest of us to quick brake to avoid hitting them.
They should issue dart guns to all cars. When you see a jerk style movement, paste a dart on the rear of their car. Anyone with more than 5 darts on the rear automatically gets a ticket.

By: Oran Viriyincy

Oran Viriyincy — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:09:21 +0000

Thanks for explaining how it works in England, Zed. I didn’t know it used an average speed.

Photo ID works on freeways. We already have it here on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and soon to be on the 520 bridge for enforcing the electronic toll collection system. Instead of measuring speed it reads Good to Go! tags. The camera, one over each lane, knows exactly where the antenna or radar is pointed at so it can distinguish individual vehicles.

I’m not sure but I think there is a law in this state that prohibits the electronic tolling system from being used to enforce speed limits.

By: archie

archie — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:44:36 +0000

Multilane Phoenix freeways use cameras to catch speeders. And I have hard evidence :( that they found a way to make it work in Albuquerque on a 3+ lane interstate.

By: archie

archie — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:36:46 +0000

And even fewer can front the money, I’m guessing. I remember in Germany getting your license costed on the order of thousands of euros

By: Zed

Zed — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:22:49 +0000

“Photo identification doesn’t work on freeways, Oran.”

That’s not true, it’s already been implemented in England on their “smart” motorways. The number plate of every vehicle is photographed at certain intervals along the motorway and an average speed is calculated for each car. If your average speed is higher than the posted speed you’re sent a ticket.

By: Anandakos

Anandakos — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:48:02 +0000

Photo identification doesn’t work on freeways, Oran. Which car in the photo is the one speeding? It’s fine on a single lane street by a school, but in multi-lane traffic it has to be done technologically by the radar.

I don’t know if such a system is available at this time, but surely someone in Puget Sound could do the hardware and software required. Maybe we call it “LaneIx”.

The key is putting it in replacement license plates.

By: Oran

Oran — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:05:39 +0000

Technology exists today for automatic speed enforcement with license plate recognition and radar. I think it is used on many motorways in Europe.

Bellevue and Issaquah already have speed cameras installed in a few school zones. The fine is $124.

By: Anandakos

Anandakos — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:58:52 +0000

The way to enforce this is to include RFID tags on all new license plates. Have radar above all lanes every mile or two that interrogates the RFID tag of any car speeding. Include in the enabling legislation that the registrant of the car is liable for any speeding ticket generated by the vehicle; if you lend it to someone it’s your problem getting the fine back from the driver.

Make the fine $20/mile per hour over the posted speed.

Obviously, the system has to communicate among the various stations so that the speed is checked correctly.