RCOC expands FAST-TRAC system

The Road Commission for Oakland County (RCOC) has installed ‘smart’ traffic signals in Orion Township and the Village of Lake Orion. The US$850,000 project involves 12 traffic signals and has included modernizing the signal units at many of the intersections, including converting them to energy-saving LED bulbs, as well as upgrading the pedestrian crosswalks at the intersections, in order to make them compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. RCOC designed the signal portion of the project and assisted the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) in overseeing the project implementation.

The project is part of RCOC’s FAST-TRAC (Faster And Safer Travel-Through Routing & Advanced Controls) system, which allows traffic signals to use vehicle-detection cameras that continuously monitor the amount of traffic present at an intersection and adjust signal timing in real-time to most efficiently move that traffic. RCOC’s FAST-TRAC is the second-largest adaptive traffic signal system in the USA, and is currently in place at more than 675 intersections in the county. Independent studies of RCOC’s FAST-TRAC system by Michigan State University and others have documented that the system has reduced traffic delays. A study of the system in Troy also documented a reduction of more than 50% in serious injury crashes following the installation of the system.

RCOC chairman, Eric Wilson, said, “This is real win-win technology. We’re very pleased to have assisted MDOT to expand the system to the M-24 corridor. FAST-TRAC has been proven to improve traffic flow and reduce serious injury accidents. With this system, we can get some additional vehicle capacity out of a road without widening it, while also making the road safer. That’s a substantial benefit and a great bang for the buck.” Wilson added that RCOC was the first agency to use video-imaging technology for traffic management, and maintains the largest such system in the world, with more than 2,000 vehicle-detection cameras currently in the air.

19 July 2012