Another great 2020 Innovation Idea Award Submission.
Problem Statement:
Ada County in the State of Idaho is a fast-growing urban setting. Ada County roads are busy places, and continue to get busier. Not just for drivers trying to get to their locations, but for utility and road maintenance crews as well. Everyday agencies outside of Ada County Highway District (ACHD) are working above and below the road surfaces to maintain critical infrastructure to Ada County citizens, routine maintenance is scheduled, and traffic accidents occur. Over the years multiple technologies have been put in place to help drivers navigate Ada County roads, but for various technological reasons having all that data in one place has proven elusive. Presently there are two applications that users go to that provide traffic and incident data to users of Ada County roads: RITA and a site that displays Traffic Cameras as well as other data found on the ACHD internet site. This site is unbranded, is difficult to navigate and runs on an older unsecure http platform. Due to updates in technology, licensing issues and incompatibility issues the platforms display using old dated services or does not have all the data in one place.
Summary of Solution:
Recent updates to ACHD’s GIS infrastructure and IT’s database resources allowed two members of ACHD’s IT Department to bring together technologies that have been developing independently for many years. No additional funding was required to build the dashboard or the mapping application.
Here are the technologies that are now available in the ACHD Traffic Dashboard and the ACHD Traffic App
o Data is published to XML files from the ACHD traffic management solution every 3 minutes. It is then consumed by a SQL database and shared to our GIS platform.
o The ACHD dashboard is a type of dynamic, graphical user interface which often provides at-a-glance views of Ada County traffic conditions, including Road Work In the Area, traffic cameras, and incidents affecting traffic.
o Road Work in the Area (RITA), updated M-F at 4:00 pm, identifies locations of roadwork being performed on ACHD roads. RITA identifies road closures, moving closures and sidewalk closures and is symbolized on current and pending projects. Information in RITA is captured from ACHD’s permitting software and with recent updates to the ACHD GIS platform field inspectors and Traffic Technicians update the data.
o Cameras placed at major intersections provide real-time updates to commuters. The database that stores camera images was recently updated to allow for https authentication, providing a more secure user interface. Camera images are updated every 3 minutes.
o Road Incidents and Roadwork are reported in real time to ACHD Traffic Department. For many years our Traffic Department has been building an infrastructure to allow reporting via an image of lane closures when a traffic incident occurs on an arterial or collector in Ada County. Using the latitude and longitude information captured from the Traffic Department data points can be generated to geolocate the incident on a map. Using ESRI’s Dashboard technology that data can be transformed into real time information for commuters both on a map and through a list and indicator.
o Reader Boards are static locations which display multiple lines of information. When reader boards are updated those updates are reflected in both the Traffic Dashboard and the Traffic App.
Today we would like to present the ACHD Traffic Dashboard and ACHD Traffic App. The dashboard and app bring together information from five existing platforms with an easy to use interactive display, updated basemaps, and real time traffic incident data. Data for both sites use the same data, just displayed differently for use across multiple devices.
The data used in the Traffic Dashboard and the Traffic App used only resources existing within the ACHD IT infrastructure. No additional licensing was/is required.
Summary of Expenses:
Total hours to generate the Traffic Dashboard and Traffic App:
• Clint Burgess – Web and Database Developer, Integrator ~ 30 hours
• Gail Jorgenson – GIS Analyst ~ 110 hours
• Total combined labor hours total ~ $12,000
Savings/Benefit of this Solution:
There will be no cost to citizens of Ada County to use this application. Any updates or upgrades will be considered a different phase of this project and hours will be billed as such. Updates and maintenance are considered part of regular time on the job.
You can find past submissions on our website under the News tab- within the Innovation Idea Award category.
