When: Saturday, Oct. 5, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Where: Union Plaza, north side of Nebraska Union, 1400 R St.
Lincoln, Neb., Oct. 2, 2002--Omaha motorists may have already noticed it--the bright van emblazoned with cool, colorful traffic-emblem graphics and the rooftop cameras.
Motorists all over Nebraska will eventually see it as it travels to new problem-solving traffic studies. And visitors to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus Oct. 5 can see it at Nebraska Union Plaza before the Nebraska-McNeese State football game.
It's the "I-Cubed" mobile traffic monitoring van from the University of Nebraska's Peter Kiewit Institute Intelligent Transportation System Information and Infrastructure Lab. It looks "high-tech" and it is. With data-gathering and analysis equipment on board, it's a mobile traffic engineering lab. Husker fans, students and campus visitors can get a look inside and talk to students who use it Oct. 5 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Nebraska Union Plaza north of the Nebraska Union, 1400 R St.
"The van allows us to go out and do detailed traffic studies in a wide variety of locations, and be able to collect the data in a pretty sophisticated way while analyzing it on the fly," said Elizabeth G. "Libby" Jones, assistant professor of civil engineering at the UNL College of Engineering and Technology.
Jones and students at the Kiewit Institute use the mobile traffic monitoring van to collect detailed traffic data, like the number of cars passing by, where and when; traffic flow, speeds, and vehicle density. With either of two cameras atop a 42-foot mast, they can bring visual data into the van's VCRs, monitors and computers to observe and collect video and data.
"We can get information about what the traffic signals are doing in the same data stream as the traffic so we know exactly what was going on and we can reconstruct what was happening," Jones said. "With the video, we can actually watch cars as they go through an area, and do a better job of understanding how people change lanes, and do things like study red-light running and what's causing it."
Being mobile has its advantages, Jones said. It allows the researchers to do detailed studies with one piece of equipment instead of having people scattered with radar guns, cameras and traffic-counters.
"The real advantage to this van is it makes collecting data a lot easier," she said. "It's actually dangerous to be down on the interstate and we can be up on an overpass above the traffic. Besides that, we're able to do two studies at once with the two cameras so we can get both directions of I-80 or two directions of traffic at an intersection. And we're also able to process all that data here in the van. This is a much more efficient way to collect data than what we've done in the past."
Traffic analysis vans are becoming more common in government and industry but Jones said what's uncommon about the "I-Cubed" van is it being operated by undergraduate students.
"We're very lucky to have what we have here because most universities don't have this type of equipment available for students to actually use," she said. "In the way we structured the van, I really tried to get students in charge of the van, instead of me. Plus, it gives them great hands-on experience with this new traffic equipment that's coming out. When they get out working as traffic engineers, they will be using this equipment on a daily basis or at least having to understand how it works in transportation systems."
The van, which arrived in May, has created excitement among the university's engineering students. Jones said interest in traffic engineering is way up and that students are eagerly awaiting their hands-on time in the traffic van.
"I'm not only learning the basics of traffic studies and traffic engineering, but I get to work with this high-tech equipment that will get me a head start on my career in traffic engineering," said Bryan Guy, a junior civil engineering major from Hartington, who worked in the van this summer. "This equipment you wouldn't normally get in a regular engineering curriculum. There are a lot of different fields you can do traffic engineering and use this type of equipment."
The first project worked on by the students this summer was testing some Nebraska Department of Roads equipment on Interstate 80 near the 96th Street overpass in Omaha, doing traffic counts for the Omaha transportation system near a trail and a proposed pedestrian bridge.
For the future, Jones said senior students in computer electronics engineering are designing a wireless LAN for the van which will make it capable of transmitting data over a 20-mile distance, thus expanding its capabilities.
"That will allow the van to connect back to either our lab at the institute or some other location for monitoring incidents or managing traffic in difficult situations," she said. If a bridge goes out, an accident occurs or a snowstorm closes down part of a highway, the mobile lab technology could help the roads department or state patrol divert traffic before a pileup occurs.
"Husker football games are a good example of a difficult situation," Jones said. "The games create one of the heaviest traffic volumes of the year for Interstate 80, and at places like the Waverly exit, that becomes a difficult location. In the future, if we could have a van there and transmit the data and video back to probably a State Patrol headquarters or a Department of Roads location, that would help them in managing the traffic during these special events."
But, as in all traffic engineering research, safety is still the key goal.
"What this does for Nebraska primarily is that it can help us reach our goals: of saving lives, time and money," she said.
Jones also sees the van itself as a revenue source and a recruitment tool.
"It has allowed me to bring in more research dollars that I wasn't able to before that has made me more competitive in national research funding. This lab and the equipment we have actually is a good reason why we've gotten a couple of grants. We also have private consultants interested in renting the van for traffic studies so hopefully that revenue will pay for most of the operating expenses of the van and the lab."
Contacts: Connie Walter, Engineering & Technology, (402)
472-8309 (cwalter3@unl.edu) and
Libby Jones, Traffic Engineer, (402) 554-3869, (ejones@unl.edu)
For questions regarding these releases, contact:
tsimons1@unl.edu
(402) 472-8514, Fax: (402) 472-7825