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Traffic Operations Center
There are traffic operations centers in all the larger towns and cities of the USA, and even some smaller towns for all I know! The people who work in these centers co-ordinate potential traffic chaos and make our lives so much easier. It is probably fair to say that traffic centers are modern miracles of technology without which negotiating the traffic every day would be so much more stressful than it already is.
So what goes on in traffic operations centers and how is it done? Well, in short, data from CCTVs, highway radio and fiber optic networks placed along major traffic corridors is transmitted back to the operations center where it is collated and displayed electronically on video screens. Real time decisions can then be made and information relayed to motorists via changeable message boards and highway radio.
Like conductors, the traffic operations center engineers reduce congestion because they have instant access to more information about the cause of traffic problems. They can address more traffic hitches quicker by adjusting signals and re-routing traffic. Many traffic centers use video walls so that operators can see more of what is going on and then decisions can be made and relayed via computer terminals.
Video walls are large displays that can present many bits of information to many people at the same time in the same place. Usually multiple displays are tiled together as close as possible to make a logical screen. In a traffic operations center, one main picture, perhaps of a traffic snarl-up, would appear at the centre of the video wall ringed by other pictures, perhaps of surrounding traffic, from the CCTV cameras in the area. Data sourced from traffic situations can be collated and converted using a video processor at the traffic operations centre and instantly displayed on the video walls in the form of graphs or pictures. Traffic engineers are then in a position to make decisions and relay the results to the snarl-up areas so that solutions can be put in process and problems solved as quickly as possible. Video walls can assemble a single display which is brighter, larger and of higher resolution than individual computer screens. So these displays are much more useful to engineers at traffic control centers than just desktop computer screens. The video processor converts information from different sources to a common format and so technically facilitates the process also. Of course video walls can also be used in many other applications and are useful in a wide variety of settings. Their use is only limited by lack of imagination and, of course, cost. Art galleries, museums, music production, shows or exhibitions, the list of possible applications for video walls are endless and enhancing to all of our lives. However, for sheer practical application there can be no doubt that traffic control centers have been able to use this technology to its best effect. The largely uncelebrated miracle of the modern traffic control center works silently and secretly to benefit the public and further the cause of general sanity!
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