What's New

Making Progress

The new edition of the Traffic Signal Timing Manual is now available for download. A web site containing the new manual and related information has been set up at the following address: http://www.signaltiming.com. - Added June 3, 2008

A new article titled "Integrated Corridor Management" in the March/April 2008 issue of FHWA's Public Roads reports on the Integrated Corridor Management ITS Major Initiative and its goals of relieving congestion and improving reliability. The full article can be found here: http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/08mar/05.htm. - Added April 14, 2008

A new article titled "Unifying Incident Response" in the September 2007 issue of FHWA's Public Roads reports on the National Traffic Incident Management Coalition's "National Unified Goal." The full article can be found here: http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/07sep/04.htm. - Added November 20, 2007

On October 15, 2007, the Massachusetts Highway Department announced that commuters will now be able to access up-to-the-minute, route-specific traffic, transit, weather, construction and event information by dialing 511 on their wireless telephones. The new MassHighway 511 service will replace the existing SmarTraveler service, which has been is use since 1993. For more information, go to Traveler Information. - Added November 15, 2007

The National Transportation Operations Coalition (NTOC) released their second National Traffic Signal Report card on Tuesday, October 9, 2007 (see http://www.ite.org/reportcard/default.asp). The report card grades traffic signal systems throughout the U.S. - the average score for the nation rose slightly from a D- in 2005 to a D in 2007. The accompanying report offers tips on improving traffic signal timing and other strategies to improve a locality's score. For more information, go to Traffic Signal Timing. - Added October 10, 2007

New Jersey began a soft-launch of its statewide 511 service on August 29. This limited-content version will be upgraded with an interactive voice response system and more real-time congestion information early in 2008. For more information, go to Traveler Information. - Added September 7, 2007

Georgia launched 511 services on August 15, increasing the percentage of the country's population with access to 511 services to over 41%. The U.S. DOT goal is for 100 percent of the country to have access to 511 by 2010. For more information, go to Traveler Information. - Added August 16, 2007

Tyler, Texas has announced it's intent to update its traffic signals with ACS-Lite. ACS-Lite is a low cost approach to updating traffic signal timing to reflect real time conditions. This is the first official procurement of the software product that FHWA sponsored the development of. Additional cities are also looking to purchase the ACS-Lite software. Four cities in the U.S. have already tested the ACS-Lite prototype. For more information, go to Traffic Signal Timing. - Added August 10, 2007

San Jose, California started to post travel times on Dynamic Message Signs in the area on July 2, 2007. With the addition of San Jose, 26 of the Top 40 Metro Areas (by population) in the U.S. (and 35 total locations) now display travel times on DMS. For more information, go to Traveler Information. - Added August 10, 2007