RICHARD A. DAVEY
STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts drivers should soon have a little extra help navigating the state’s traffic hotspots.
Transportation officials are preparing to launch a new, $17.5 million project to place 132 automated travel time signs on roadways across the state. The federal government will pick up the bulk of the tab.
Officials planned to flip the switch on the first permanent signs on Route 6 on Cape Cod on Friday and will expand statewide, wrapping up by the end of 2015.
Drivers are already familiar with the temporary version of the signs. There are currently about 66 of the portable signs positioned on roads across Massachusetts.
The signs anonymously track Bluetooth-enabled devices carried by motorists and their vehicles in real time to estimate how long it takes to travel between two locations. The system complies with new federal legislation that requires real time traffic information be provided to the public.
The signs flash those travel estimates in digital displays, which are constantly updated by the technology.
“This is literally the phones talking to the signs,” said state Transportation Secretary Richard Davey. The state has dubbed the new system “Go Time.”
Davey said the system will help motorists by giving them real time wait times. That will let motorists adjust their schedule, call home, seek an alternate route, or phone work to let their co-workers know they will be a little late or early.
“If you give people information and give them clear expectations … it just makes their experience that much more manageable,” Davey said.
Davey said the information will also give traffic planners “actionable data” that can be used to help ease tie-ups in areas where there is chronic congestion.
Davey said transportation officials are also hoping to use the data to reach out to employers to see if they can offer their workers more flexible schedules to let them to come into work a little earlier or later depending on the traffic situation.
The state’s first real time traffic system was launched in 2012. It was a two-year contract to install and operate 22 portable signs along I-93 at a cost to the state of $1.1 million.
Davey said the reaction to the portable signs has been nearly universally positive.
After Cape Cod, the next signs will go up on I-91 from the Connecticut border to Northampton, followed by Route 24, I-195 on the South Coast, the Southern end of I-495, I-95 from the Rhode Island border to New Hampshire, the northern end of I-495, Route 3 to Nashua, I-290 through Worcester, segments of Route 2, Routes 1 and 1A, and on I-90 from Sturbridge to Chicopee.
By late 2015, the new signs will be installed along all major metropolitan highways and on 678 miles of highway in Massachusetts.
