The city next week will start the bidding process for the installation project that will link all the city’s 97 signals to a central computer.
The new system will let staff change what signals are telling drivers to do at intersections based on what video cameras at each location are showing them. If at times city staff would allow it, the computer system could also make such adjustments on its own, based on what how many vehicles it detects waiting at intersections, through the video monitors.
“It will have the ability to make changes individually at traffic signals within the parameters that we set,” said Rich Engle, the city’s director of engineering. “It can adjust to different times of the day and different traffic patterns.”
The system also will accumulate data about traffic patterns, which the city can analyze over time to make changes before events occur, he said.
“For example, a Friday night football game at Hamilton High, if we know that a lot of the traffic will be leaving the stadium and going south on Eaton Avenue and then maybe down Main Street, we can set different patterns for different times of the day and week,” Engle said.
It may will take a year or more to review the data and make such adjustments, he said “It’s not going to be a ‘turn on and let it go,’” he said. “We’re going to have constant evaluation of the information being generated by the system and make the appropriate adjustments in the parameters.”
Emergency vehicles will be able to “preempt” signals to speed their way to emergencies or hospitals.
The traffic system is manufactured by Econolite. Installation will include traffic video detectors, battery backups for each signal, fiber links among the signals and installation of handicapped curb ramps at every intersection that lacks them.
A contract will be advertised next week for the project’s construction, which is included in the project’s overall price tag. A bid should be awarded yet this summer.
Engle said he had one concern about the project: delays in receiving some construction materials, and its rising costs.
As part of its bid request, Hamilton has asked that contractors install key traffic areas first, such as the High/Main streets corridor the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. But: “Materials may dictate that more than we would like. We’ll find out more as we go through the bidding process, because contractors will be quick to ask questions and try to get a better understanding of how we want the project to proceed.”
Of the project’s cost, $4.2 million is coming through a federal Surface Transportation block grant administered through the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments, known as OKI.
Handicapped ramps will be added in intersections where they aren’t already present, because anytime significant work is done on intersections, local governments are required to add them as part of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“We are working through the city, even when we do resurfacing projects, we’re upgrading the handicapped ramps as part of that,” Engle said. “That’s our effort to comply with ADA requirements for the entire city as soon as we can.”
“At the end of the day, our main goal is to move traffic through the city safely and efficiently,” said Scott Hoover, the city’s traffic operations ,anager. “With this new technology, we will be better equipped to accomplish this.”
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