$100 Million and 10 Years Wasted
CLOGGED ROADS
Broward goal: cables upgrade
Broward County is working on a $100 million project to synchronize traffic lights, but that won’t help on roads with too much congestion.
By AMY SHERMAN
asherman@MiamiHerald.com
Nearly all of Broward’s traffic lights should be synchronized on any given day after the county completes an estimated $100 million upgrade, according to a county traffic engineer.
That would mean that drivers traveling on major roads should not hit every single red light — if drivers are able to travel at the speed limit. During rush hours or on heavily congested roads, drivers will still get stuck at multiple red lights.
”You can’t time yourself out of congestion,” said John Kleinedler, a Broward County traffic engineer.
FIBER-OPTIC OPTION
The project, now under way, is expected to be complete around 2012 or 2013. It involves replacing old copper communications cables with new fiber-optic cables, which are expected to be more reliable… Read More About the Cable Project Here:
And an overview report on traffic woes, blaming the cable system here:
Failure to sync Dade’s traffic lights driving commuters crazy
Electrician Ray Albizu spends too much of his working life idling in his company pickup truck as he shuttles between Home Depots in Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. He can tell when he’s crossing into Miami-Dade simply by the traffic lights….
It’s Friday and it’s been a good week. Any week where our little business processes orders is a good week. We’re working with an existing client on a governmental brief next week for a very nice sale also, so life is good. I think today I’ll stretch my wings a little and look at different aspect of technology. Just a post or so ago I mentioned that GPS is not the only (and not always the best) technology for tracking assets. Now I’m going to teach you something else … copper wire and even fiber optics are often not the best way to move data.
The stories I referenced today are very typical of today’s communications technology. 100 million dollars to replace copper cables connecting traffic signals with modern fiber optic cables. If you’re an engineer with a modern electronics, or especially a computer science degree (CS course seem to be the worst for the communications side of computing), this probably sounds logical to you. Fine. Polish the glass over your sheepskin and bask in your assumed superiority, but no matter how self-satisfied you are you are wrong.
Connecting traffic signals with fiber optic cables is dumb, dumb, dumb. And it’s expensive, expensive, expensive. Consider, just for a moment, how much data needs to actually flow between traffic signals and a central control station. A few bytes (t most) from the traffic signal’s on-site controller, send in information like “a car is over the sensor in the left turn lane, so please authorize the left turn only arrow’. Presto – one bit … not one byte, one bit. “One of my lights is burned out, please send maintenance’. Again, one single bit. What about traffic back from the controller to the individual traffic signal? “Change from timing pattern ‘A’ to timing pattern ‘B’”. Ok. Maybe 3 bits … that would allow for over 256 different timing patterns. Or. “Ste lights ‘green’ on Oak Street for a fire engine.” Again, one “huge” bit of data.
So for this we need high speed fiber optics capable of carrying gigabytes of data? A dedicated (read stovepipe) system that will only serve the needs of the traffic lights? How freaking quaint. Anyone ever hear of Wi-Fi? Covering large areas with Wi-Fi can be problematical. You need a lot of points where you can mount access points, relatively close together. And, if possible, the points should already have a structure elevating them well above ground level. Hmmm.
Are you seeing the picture yet? How often can you drive in a heavily populated county without being in sight of a traffic signal … in point of fact, that’s part of the problem, is it not? Too many streets too close together and thus too many intersections that all must be controlled by traffic signals for safety? And how far off the ground are the poles and crossarms of signal system? Easily 20 feet or more … an ideal place to mount Wi-Fi equipment. One of the weak points of wireless network design is a way to work around something that interferes with transmission for point A to point B. The normal way to work around this issue is to design a mesh network. Ever notice how traffic signals are already dispersed in a “mesh” across a city or county?
I’m not picking on Miami-Dade here. My own city has wasted hundreds of millions on fiber optics to traffic signals also. So much for the innovation of engineering graduates. It’s strictly a “monkey see, monkey do” environment. The first guy uses the wrong tool for the job and wastes hundreds of millions, the rest fall in line and copy, copy, copy.
This post is already too long. I’ll post again on the advantages aside from cost savings that a heavily meshed Wi-Fi traffic signal net could offer. (And yes I certainly do have an answer for video).