GAINESVILLE - Imagine a room without any windows, yet those in the room can clearly see what is happening outside, even at a location miles away.
That room really exists and it is on the second floor of the City of Gainesville Administrative Building on Henry Ward Way; it is the new Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Control Room. From that windowless location vehicular traffic at 22 strategic locations within the city can be visually monitored and controlled.
Video cameras at those 22 locations provide a real-time look at the traffic flow – or lack of thereof – so traffic experts can make adjustments to the timing of stop lights and better regulate traffic movement.
Members of the Gainesville City Council were given an exclusive tour of the facility Thursday morning before their work session.
Public Works Director Chris Rotalsky pointed at a large monitor located in the center of numerous other monitors. He said it was a compilation, or overview, of all traffic under the control of ITS.
That monitor displayed the status of the traffic lights at each of the intersections. “What you see here is what is happening real-time at (each) intersection,” Rotalsky said.
To supplement that empirical data a live video feed from each intersection showed how traffic was flowing in response to those traffic lights. Nearly sixty cameras were displaying video Thursday morning during the tour.
“It allows us to really look at not just individual intersections but corridors as a whole,” Rotalsky added.
He said the use of video cameras not only provides a better understanding of traffic activity but related costs are much lower than the previous detection system using wires buried in the pavement.
“So where we used to have lines cut in the intersection that had what they called ‘loops’ in them for detection,” Rotalsky said, “we no longer do that because those would get cut, those would break, those would have challenges.”
Rotalsky explained that the Control Room would not be manned on a 24/7 basis, but the Max Time software that runs the system would monitor traffic flow constantly and notify staff when an anomaly occurred.
City Manager Bryan Lackey said, “In the next storm event this will be our headquarters, right here. In emergency times we’ll have a good headquarters to come in and manage from.”
According to city leaders the system is not intended for policing purposes (accident investigation, identifying potential threats or seeking fugitives). Law enforcement is not a facet of the system at this time.
“The detail of the video is not good enough; we’re not watching people,” Rotalsky said. “You can’t see the individuals in the cars…you can’t even make out the license plates. This is a tool for moving traffic and transportation.”
Lackey said one exception to that would be during times of exceptional shopping traffic, such as Black Friday. “If someone from police was here in the room (they could) radio back to their people in the field that at an intersection (had drivers) blocking it…to go to that intersection to remind those people that they are not to block intersections when the light turns.”
Rhonda Brady, Gainesville Transportation Engineering Manager, said a recent addition to the system’s functionality belongs to the Gainesville Fire Department. “The Fire Department has installed a…system at five intersections…it’s a GPS coordination between their vehicle…and the intersection, and it transmits to the intersection so that typically whatever direction they are coming they will get the green…and once they get through the intersection it will fault back to the original cycle.”
What has been the biggest challenge so far? Rotalsky said, “This year, for whatever reason, squirrels have loved our wires. They have chewed up a tremendous amount so we’ve had a lot of hardware repair.”
