ITS: New Hampshire getting new advanced traffic management command center

Officials at the New Hampshire Department of Transportation’s Traffic Management Center will soon be able to alert motorists to changing traffic conditions in real-time thanks to a new regional traffic management system scheduled to be in place by 2016. Vermont and Maine have also signed on to make use of the new system.

The system will be developed and implemented by the Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio, which signed a five-year contract with all three states for $4.6 million. All of the funding for the project will be provided by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

In each state, the system will be made up of three main components: an intelligent transportation system (ITS) to collect traffic data; a traveler information system to get alerts to drivers via text and e-mail; and a data fusion hub to help facilitate the exchange of information.

At the NHDOT Traffic Management Center, engineers will be able to access all message boards—there are almost 45 boards located across the state—within a desired radius with one click. The new system will allow those boards to display local drive times, a feature unavailable to motorists until now. It will also make use of New Hampshire’s 120 existing traffic cameras to monitor daily activity.