TRAFFIC GURU
By Ed Drass
I have a
prediction: By March of next year, we city drivers will finally
remember how to drive on slippery roads. Every winter motorists in
the semi-tropical Bronze Horseshoe forget they live in Canada. No
matter how many seasons go by, we act stunned when real snow falls
south of the 407. Suddenly the old memory stick gets plugged in:
What is all this white crap? Oh sh** -- do I need new winter tires?
Where's the sharp plastic thing I used last year to clean the
windows? Why is that car bumper approaching so fast, even though my
foot is crushing the brake? Where did the road go?
A new
Washington State study finds that weather is the one variable that
can reliably be used to actually predict congestion. The air and
shipping industry account for storms when predicting travel times,
and road transport can benefit too. Here in Canada, we know that
winter makes driving harder -- yet we don't seem to be doing much to
mitigate the effect of it. Although there are sensors in the roads
to tell us traffic speeds, our authorities have been too shy, or too
frugal, to install available technology to warn us about freezing
bridges, slick roads or even black ice. Yes there are handy maps on
TV and the internet that use neat colours to show slushy, snowy or
bare surface conditions, but beyond that the driver is on their own.
Not to worry --
we're Canadians. Pavement is icy? Dump salt on it. Despite all the
effort expended on weather forecasting, and traffic reports to the
nines, we still let the a snowstorm blow in without a preparing a
congestion game plan. Traffic expert and professor Baher Abdulhai at
the University of Toronto points out that we in Ontario are not
slouches in dealing with gridlock -- commuting would be a lot worse
without the extensive cameras and sensors monitoring highways in the
GTA and Ottawa. It may be hard to believe, but a lot of time and
research has gone into steering drivers around trouble spots -- but
much more can be done.
Helping the
road system recover quickly from bad weather is a "a very important
area", says Dr. Abdulhai, but researchers would need a lot more data
to work out a game plan. "What we have access to is a continuous
stream of traffic measurements and incident reports, and at the same
time we can tap into any of the weather information websites, and
figure out whether it was sunny, rainy, snowy," he says. But to
actually help drivers, transport officials would need accurate local
details. "You don't have it on a section-by-section basis on the
highway or on bridges."
Think of the
400 heading to Barrie -- how far south is the snow falling, how is
the road surface, should drivers wait before heading home? Can MTO
and the police get advance notice in case they must close the road
and set up detour routes?
So far there
doesn't appear to be much money available to study how governments
can plan ahead for weather-related congestion. However Dr. Abdulhai
is currently researching ways to properly connect the information
coming in from both provincial expressways and municipal roads. For
example, whenever the 401 clogs up, traffic watchers look for
alternatives routes that can bleed off some of the volume. But
there's no point sending motorists onto local streets that might be
even more jammed up. The U of T transport gurus are looking at how
to create an instant, complete picture of major road corridors --
regardless of who owns them.
Traffic data is
becoming more valuable every minute, and Canada should be mining for
it. Drivers looking to avoid gridlock want timely, accurate
information and the U.S., Europe and China are investing heavily in
sensors and other technologies to provide just that. Private
congestion forecasting companies have been sniffing around the
Toronto market, believing opera fans might pay for personalized
directions to actually get downtown before the evening show starts,
or limo chauffeurs could spend a buck to learn which route to the
airport is moving well. Time can be money -- how much would courier
companies benefit by knowing exactly which roads are snow-covered,
and which ones are freshly plowed?
Ed Drass
edrass@nationalpost.com