Currently, over 21 million trips are taken daily by 7.5 million residents in the San Francisco Bay Area, with some 85% of this on the regional freeways and highways. Research shows that in 2035 the Bay area population is expected to reach just over nine million residents - an increase of 25% with corresponding increases in travel.
Tom Biggs, Atkins’ project director, said: “This work is part of a broader Atkins initiative in California to develop state-of-the-art techniques and evaluation methodologies for multimodal corridors and to support its evolving managed lanes practice. Our experience on this project will improve our ability to serve other agencies that are looking for innovative and efficient data-collection technologies.”
Atkins has been awarded the contract by the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, one of the largest counties in the nine county San Francisco Bay area with around one million people. As part of the study, Atkins will collect traffic congestion data from 78 local intersections and 11 freeway segments throughout the county, comparing the findings with past results. Monitoring methods will include vehicle probe data, video detection and manual counts. New technologies will also be used, including density studies based on aerial photography and in-vehicle Bluetooth device monitoring.
Many vehicles now contain Bluetooth-enabled networking devices and those signals can be detected by sensors on the roadside. To ensure driver privacy, the Bluetooth signals read by the sensors do not include any personal data, and the information gathered is ‘randomised’ and securely encrypted immediately upon detection.
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