Gadgets Get Call to Speed Area Traffic

Ray Granstedt can’t make San Diego’s traffic disappear. But the veteran Caltrans engineer is trying to concoct a system of high-tech gadgets and old-fashioned moxie that will keep the freeways flowing as smoothly as possible.

Granstedt’s vision combines colorful, computer-generated graphics that will pinpoint trouble spots on the freeways with a rapidly deployed force of helicopters and tow trucks to find highway wreckage and remove it before a minor bottleneck becomes a major clog.

Mobile radio transmitters and changing message signs would direct motorists to freely moving alternates.

Bits and Pieces in Place

Today, Caltrans’ San Diego operation has bits and pieces of such a system scattered throughout its office complex in Old Town. Other parts are on the drawing boards, scheduled to be phased in slowly over the next decade.

But a bill by Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) and signed July 10 by Gov. George Deukmejian could push Caltrans to put the new system in place sooner than planned. Deukmejian singled out the proposed San Diego traffic operations center to be funded as part of his proposed $2.3-billion bond program for transportation.

Stirling sees the center as the first step toward controlling freeways in urban areas the same way airspace is controlled around major airports, with operators directing traffic to certain areas, diverting some traffic and disallowing certain vehicles, such as diesel trucks, at certain hours.

“You’ll never be able to build enough freeways or public transit to serve us the way it did 25 years ago, when I moved to San Diego,” Stirling said. “So what we need to do is make the best use of the existing, incredible allocation to surface transportation. Fifty percent of the land space in the urban scene is street right-of-way, and we spend billions on freeways, and it still takes an hour to get home at night.

‘More Brains, Less Concrete’

“What we need to do is work a lot smarter. We need more brains and less concrete.”

The San Diego center would be similar in many ways to one operating in Los Angeles, where the 1984 Olympic Games forced state and local officials to use every possible method to avoid a traffic catastrophe on that city’s local streets and freeways.

The Los Angeles center, however, was pieced together over an already overwhelmed network of aging freeways. It is often referred to derisively as no more than a system of signs telling people stuck in traffic that they are stuck in traffic. Still, defenders of the Los Angeles center insist that the city’s bleak picture would be even darker if it were not for their work.

“We save the motorists out there a lot of time,” said Frank Lehr, manager of the Los Angeles Traffic Operations Center. “If it weren’t for this setup, it would be an additional 15 to 20 minutes before someone got out there to see what the problem was and what was needed to clear it.”

Granstedt, who heads what he calls a “primitive” operations center in San Diego, cautions against expecting too much from a San Diego version of the center.

‘It’s Nothing Magic’

“There’s nothing magic about it,” Granstedt said. “It’s not going to make the traffic go away.”

What the center can do, he said, is ensure that every mile of freeway lane is used to its fullest.

“We want to be able to remove a disabled vehicle or accident as soon as possible,” he said. “The quicker we can do that, the less delay you’ll have.”

For every minute the freeway is blocked, traffic engineers like to say, four minutes of congestion results. That’s why motorists often find themselves stuck in traffic for long delays without ever seeing the problem that caused the logjam.

Here’s a look at what Granstedt has in mind:

- Detection. Hundreds of sensors would be buried in the freeway pavement, sending signals every 30 seconds to a computer that would produce wall-sized graphics designed to alert operators to trouble spots as soon as they occur. The computer would show fast-moving freeways in green, use yellow to show a slowdown, and flash in red whenever the lanes became clogged.

Traditional computer terminals would provide statistical information on the volume and estimated speed of any stretch of freeway in the metropolitan area.

The county’s new system of freeway call boxes, along with private traffic reporting services and possibly a California Highway Patrol helicopter would also contribute information to the command center, where operators would evaluate the data and decide how to react.

- Removal. Operators watching the map and receiving reports from the field would see traffic congestion forming as it happened. If needed, they could quickly dispatch trucks or other crews to the scene to help clean up the mess as quickly as possible.

Caltrans already has two such teams roving San Diego’s freeways during rush hour. Granstedt believes at least two more will be needed soon.

- Detours. The same crews used for removing obstacles might include trucks equipped with message signs or even mobile radio transmitters to alert approaching traffic to the problem and tell them what they should do to avoid it. Fixed signs might be built on the approaches to key freeway junctions, such as southbound Interstate 15 and California 163, to advise motorists of an accident ahead.

- Routine. Several methods are planned to help relieve daily congestion that can slow freeway movement even when there are no accidents.

An 8-mile car-pool lane is being built on Interstate 15. The direction of traffic on the lane will be reversed to coincide with the morning and afternoon rush hours.

A system of closed-circuit cameras and message signs for the Coronado Bridge is nearing completion. Other changing message signs might be used later to urge drivers to leave freeways in favor of faster-moving surface streets such as Friars Road or El Cajon Boulevard, where traffic signals might be overridden to allow the diverted traffic to move more swiftly.

Ramp Meters to Increase

A growing network of computer-operated ramp meters will be used more frequently to control traffic flow onto the freeways. Already, about 70 such meters are in use along Interstates 8 and 805 and California 94. Sensors beneath the freeway pavement judge the traffic volume and then allow more or fewer cars onto the highway depending on the congestion.

The existing system can also monitor the length of lines on the ramps and count the number of cars that run the red lights. If the number gets too high, CHP officers are alerted and sent to crack down on violators.

Transportation planners believe San Diego’s ramp-metering system is already the most sophisticated in the country. They dream of using the meters and nearby signs to keep traffic off the freeways altogether when congestion is at its worst.

“If we can get the person to divert to a surface street before he even gets on the freeway, I think we’d be better off,” Granstedt said.