The Aldis GridSmart Blog

By: Erica Estep
Knoxville News Sentinel

Sevierville, TN - More cameras are going up at intersections in Sevierville, but they aren’t meant to monitor speeding or running red lights.

Instead, the traffic cameras are aimed at putting the brakes on a constant traffic headache. Traffic congestion is so thick on Highway 66 during peak times, police are required to direct vehicles through busy intersections.

“This is a man power issue for me,” says police Chief Don Myers. “We’ve expanded a good amount of overtime monies this past season just keeping up on Saturdays and Sundays on traffic issues. So this is really going to help me out a lot.” 

City officials and Aldis the company behind GridSmart, hope the high tech cameras will keep people moving.

Aldis’ Vice President of Operations, Matt Greenoe, explains how the cameras will be a big help during the massive construction project on Highway 66.

“With the constant construction over the next year or two, what we’re able to do is remotely manage traffic using these cameras. Our camera is a stop bar detection, which means when a vehicle pulls up to the stop bar at the intersection, we send a signal to the controller to let the controller know a vehicle is present and to cycle through the red, yellow, green lights,” Greenoe says. 

The cameras are so small and so high in the air, most people won’t even know they’re there. Police say they’re meant for strictly easing congestion, not issuing tickets.

“They think it’s going to be a traffic camera to write tickets and that is not the function of these cameras,” Chief Myers says. “They’re not set up to do that and we do not intend to have that use for them at all.” 

TDOT is footing the bill, at a cost of about $10,000 per intersection. The traffic cameras will also provide real time traffic counts.

Howard Kingsbury owns The Diner on Highway 66. The construction has caused an eyesore in front of his restaurant, but he knows the finished product will ease traffic congestion and he hopes the new cameras will, too.

“We hope it’s going to help and the traffic will flow a little bit better,” Kingsbury says. “They say that it will. We’ve had some police men out on the corners changing lights and controlling lights and I know that’s helped, so we have to assume that some automation can help.”

The two cameras already in place are at the intersections of Highway 66 and Main Street and Highway 66 and Highway 448.

Plus, there are four more cameras scheduled to go up at intersections on Highway 66 over the next several months.

By: Jeff Farrell
The Mountain Press

Sevierville, TN — Those new cameras appearing along Highway 66 are there to help traffic — not issue tickets.

City officials want to be clear on that much: the new technology, developed by Aldis Corp. of Oak Ridge, is designed to help adjust to changing traffic patterns and respond to backups without always requiring a police officer to come out and man the controls.

What it doesn’t do, they said, is get pictures of cars that run the lights. It isn’t even designed to capture license plates.

“It is not a red-light camera,” said Bob Stahlke, public information officer for the city. “This is a traffic control camera that is basically in place of the loops that would be under the lanes at the intersection.”

The cameras provide a 360-degree view of the intersection. Using software designed by Aldis, city officials can designate areas in each lane where the camera should detect cars — and base the light cycle on that information.

That means that they can keep traffic flowing on Highway 66 longer when there aren’t cars trying to turn off of secondary roads. It also means they can adjust the patterns quickly whenever the flow of traffic changes. That’s a big plus during a massive construction project like the expansion of Highway 66.

Previously, the city used loops under the road for that purpose. The loops would detect cars waiting to turn or travel through the intersection, and send a signal to the lights.

But Stahlke noted they use magnets to detect the cars, so they don’t always “notice” motorcycles or some newer cars that use considerably less metal than older models.

“Some people think the loops work on a vehicle’s weight, but what the loops do is pick up on the magnetic field of the vehicle,” he said.

During construction, the loops are all but useless. They can’t be adjusted when the flow of traffic changes while work is going on. The new cameras can be adjusted without even going to the site.

“There’s going to be numerous instances where they will change lanes and maybe use a shoulder for a lane or a center turn lane for a third lane and with the camera we can reconfigure the lanes and do it remotely,” Stahlke said. “We can do it immediately.”

The work is being paid for by the Tennessee Department of Transportation; money budgeted for replacement of the old loops is being used to purchase the cameras instead.

City officials hope that will result in better traffic flow during construction, which they acknowledge has become a problem. Police officers are often visible at the manual controls for the lights; they hope the new cameras will reduce the need to send them to the intersections.

“With the construction and lane changes and everything it may still be necessary at peak times,” Stahlke said.

When cars approach the stop bar — the white line at intersections that designates where automobiles should stop — the cameras send a signal to the controllers along the road, which then cycle through the lights.

The cameras will also provide the city, and Aldis, with real-time data on the volume of traffic flow along the road.

“We’re able to adjust the signal timing based on real-time data,” said Matt Greenoe, vice president of Aldis.

The lights have been installed at the intersection of Highway 66 and Main Street and Highway 66 and North Parkway. They will eventually be added at other intersections in the construction area.

By: Colby Itkowitz
CQ Weekly – Vantage Point

Washington, D.C. – When she was secretary of Transportation, for the final 27 months of the Bush administration, Mary E. Peters angered Congress by using some discretionary highway money at her disposal for a program that aimed to apply advanced technology to reduce congestion — rather than by just building more roads.

Now, after almost a year in her new role as transportation consultant, Peters is preparing to lobby Congress for similar technology in the next highway and transit authorization bill. Specifically, the one-time Arizona transportation director is promoting an advanced traffic-light system that adjusts for conditions — allowing cars through intersections, for instance, when no traffic is coming the other way. The sensory cameras are being developed by Aldis Inc., where Peters is a board member.

By the Federal Highway Administration’s estimate, each dollar invested in such traffic signaling technology saves the public $40 in fuel and time. Peters wants Congress to set aside $1 billion a year for states to use such technology. “One of the really important things about technology is that it can be implemented very quickly at relatively low costs,” she says. “These technologies are proven to reduce congestion. People think it’s a great idea, but then it doesn’t happen.”

The federal highway program does fund research for new technology, but a lot of it is already developed. Peters says the money she’s after should be used to help states implement the technology.

University of Virginia professor William T. Scherer, who’s president of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Society, said the federal government needs to get involved and get creative. There’s potential, he says, for partnerships with private interests such as Google Inc., Apple Inc. and automobile companies to equip cars with systems that alert drivers when, say, there’s an accident ahead or a patch of black ice.

“We’re not going to build our way out of this,” Scherer says. “The vision is to figure out what is the smartest way to allow vehicles to talk to vehicles. How is this all going to play together? We have the research; the technology is there.”

By: Undefined
ITS America

Washington, D.C. – Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters today said Congress must provide the funding needed to deploy transportation technologies now, calling on lawmakers to dedicate at least $1 billion a year in the next surface reauthorization bill for congestion busting high-tech solutions to the nation’s traffic woes.

She said technology can be deployed much faster than crews can build roads, and suggested that even a small amount of funding dedicated to installing technology on the nation’s roads and highways could lead to immediate returns in the fight to reduce the time people and products spend sitting in traffic.

“We have made significant gains in technology development, but there isn’t enough funding to advance and implement these innovations as fast as commuters need the help,” she said.

Peters said she knows of no funding for deployment of intelligent transportation technologies included in current drafts of the reauthorization package, noting an effort to dedicate funding for ITS deployment was authorized as part of SAFETEA-LU, but was stripped in conference, delaying by years any hope for a federal technology push.

The former transportation chief said technology like that being developed by Oak Ridge, TN – based Aldis, Inc. could have a significant impact reducing congestion on freeways and at intersections. 

Peters, who now serves on the company’s Board of Directors, said Aldis has commercialized the GridSmart product line, a single camera with an ultra-wide angle lens that tracks all movement in its field of view.  The technology allows for real-time management of intersections, tracking cars, trucks, bicycles and pedestrians while recording turning movements, vehicle counts, types of vehicles and pedestrians.

Peters added much of the new technology, like the Aldis GridSmart, is cheaper to buy and maintain and does a better job of reducing congestion, pollution and delays.   But deployment is slow because communities don’t have enough cash on hand to convert older systems as fast as they would like.

“Technology leads the way in every other aspect of our daily lives,” Peters said.  “Yet we have left it by the side of the road when it comes time to set our federal transportation spending priorities,” she added.

By: Jeff Farrell
The Mountain Press

Sevierville, TN — Some new cameras could help Sevierville officials get a better handle on the ever changing traffic on Highway 66 during and after expansion of the road.

Officials are quick to say the improvement comes without using the camera for traffic enforcement — it won’t result in tickets for motorists at the red lights.

The GridSmart cameras, made by Aldis Inc., give a 360-degree view of the area around a traffic light. Using special software, they can be used to change traffic signals to keep up with current conditions.

That sounded like a good fit for Highway 66, especially as the expansion will force constant shifts in the flow of traffic as work moves to different lanes.

“It’s as close as you can get to having a person at the traffic controls,” City Manager Steve Hendrix said.

After getting permission from the Board of Mayor and Aldermen during a workshop, Hendrix has asked the Tennessee Department of Transportation to install the cameras instead of replacing the loops currently use by the city. The change means they can add the lights right away, rather than waiting until the end of the construction.

TDOT was scheduled to fix the loops as it wrapped up work on the project, and the work is included in the budget for the state project.

Matt Grenoe, a vice president with Aldis, said the software can detect the speed and direction of travel for cars, and uses a mathematical equation to determine when to extend or decrease the time for each signal.

That means it can adjust for backups without the need for a police officer to go by and change the cycle.

It will also allow the city to collect real data on traffic flow during different hours, days or seasons, instead of using projections based on data collected for a few days.

During a recent workshop, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen gave Hendrix a consensus that he could approach the state with the idea of switching the cameras for the loops they currently use, which are placed under the pavement near intersections.

They also reviewed the latest plans for downtown parking. The issue hasn’t been discussed much since the Board of Mayor and Aldermen decided to abandon plans for a parking garage on Bruce Street. That also ended plans for “streetscaping” along downtown streets, because the new garage would have replaced parking places lost when the city expanded sidewalks and added planters.

The newest design for the city’s downtown parking area calls for rest rooms, electrical outlets and landscaping in the city’s parking area on Bruce Street. The public parking area — the same one the city was considering for the garage — was being leased but is now owned by the city.

“As the parking garage went away, and the streetscapes went away, we asked ourselves what could we do to bring al little of both back to the downtown area,” Hendrix said.

The electric outlets and rest rooms will help when the city is hosting events like the Bloomin’ BBQ & Bluegrass festival. The plan still calls for additional parking spaces.

While the drawing showed a booth to collect payments, Hendrix said they don’t plan on having a booth or making the free parking area into a pay parking area.

“We’re not planning on doing that,” Hendrix said.

The board also asked engineers to bring back information on adding a stage to the building that would house the rest rooms. Alderman Barry Gibbs suggested the change, noting the could use a design similar to what the city of Knoxville has at Market Square.

By: Elana Schor
Streetsblog

Washington, D.C. – Former Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who served for eight years in George W. Bush’s DOT, sat down with Streetsblog Capitol Hill yesterday to urge that Congress add a dedicated funding stream of $1 billion each year for transportation technology to the next long-term infrastructure bill.

Since leaving office, Peters has transitioned to private consulting work in her home state of Arizona and joined the board of directors at Aldis, a Tennessee-based traffic management company.

Aldis’ GridSmart program, a panoramic camera that captures vehicles and pedestrians at intersections and helps “smartly” synchronize traffic signals accordingly, would stand to gain if Congress heeds Peters’ advice and directly funds transportation technology.

Peters acknowledged that her proposal for the next infrastructure bill would help Aldis, but she described the billion-dollar dedicated funding as an opportunity for states and cities to choose their own high-tech solutions for traffic management. “This is a great application,” Peters said of the GridSmart.

The House’s original version of the 2005 transportation bill, which was recently extended for another month amid political wrangling, included $3 billion over five years for technological upgrades, also known as “intelligent transportation.” But that money was removed from the legislation during conference talks with the Senate, Peters noted, leaving states without federal help with modernizing their congestion management.

The annual $1 billion fund Peters is backing wouold be distributed to states by formula, but state DOT’s would have to report back to Washington on how effectively their technological investments were meeting specific performance targets.

What standards does Peters think should be used to judge state DOTs’ technological upgrades? Decreased delay time, but also safety for drivers as well as pedestrians. On that issue, the GridSmart program would also get a leg up – Aldis’ cameras have the ability not just to lengthen green lights for a row of trucks, but also to extend red lights so a large volume of pedestrians could cross a street without being trapped on the sidewalk.

Peters said she could also see states being asked to use their transportation technology money on better road pricing systems, such as the traffic management cameras that were installed as part of Miami’s federally funded I-95 HOT lanes.

The House’s current draft of a new long-term infrastructure bill does not include dedicated money for transport technology, but “intelligent transportation” is not without its congressional allies; Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) has founded a caucus that focuses on the issue. And the likely delay in taking up the next long-term bill could end up giving Peters and Aldis more time to press their case.