High-Tech Navigation on Way for Motorists

SACRAMENTO â€”  Imagine, if you will, getting into your car in the morning, punching an on-board navigational computer and zipping off to work across Los Angeles on streets and highways free of congestion, delays and superheated tempers.

You arrive at the work site on time, nerves perfectly in place. You did not leave home at 6 a.m. and spend 90 infuriating minutes behind the wheel listening to radio reports of monumental traffic jams ahead.

Inconceivable, you say? Well, maybe. But engineers in the newly created but little-known Office of New Technology in the vast state Department of Transportation are optimistic that such a circumstance may only be a few years away.

Electronic Navigation

Computerized navigational devices are on the market already, pointing the way on electronic maps to guide motorists to their destinations. But private, academic and state researchers consider them only the basic building blocks of a sophisticated new high-tech attack on traffic congestion.

Within five years, forecasts John Vostrez, chief of the new technology office, an electronic navigation system will be available to motorists that will not only guide them to their destination but also avoid congestion, select faster alternate routes, recommend the best time to travel and perhaps even locate a parking spot miles away.

The rosy hopes of the engineers, of course, are countered by the more pessimistic outlook of traffic experts who have predicted a steady worsening of Southern California’s traffic dilemma in years to come.

But even the pessimists, recalling the successful strategies employed during the 1984 Olympics, acknowledge that a relatively small reduction in traffic volume on jammed freeways could make a remarkable difference. It is this kind of a reduction the technology boosters hope to achieve.

Cites Technologies

In his recently announced transportation plan to “keep California rolling forward into the 21st Century,� Gov. George Deukmejian briefly cited expanded use of modern technologies as a tool to help reduce congestion, a worsening phenomenon for which no cure has been devised.

While he spoke of expanding existing road sensors and television monitors to provide motorists with information on highway conditions as a short-term step, Deukmejian did not mention longer-term congestion-reduction schemes being examined by Caltrans, including the electronic navigator.

As Vostrez foresees it, the electronic navigation system, which may be an option available on so-called “smart cars� of the foreseeable future or can be added on to older autos, would significantly reduce congestion when it is tied into existing highway information facilities.

For example, a vehicle’s electronic navigator could tap into the department’s “traffic operations center� in Los Angeles which currently collects highway condition information from a wide geographic area, analyzes it, and makes traffic management decisions dealing with accidents, traffic jams, lane closures and maintenance and road construction projects.

By tapping into the center’s huge data banks, the motorist’s computer could, conceivably, recommend the best routes to take to avoid congestion, propose optimum driving times and select alternative streets or highways. It would also plot how long it would take to reach the destination.

On the other hand, the mobile computer at various street and highway locations could report up-to-date traffic information back to the center for use by other motorists, whose vehicles would be similarly equipped.

Technology Available

“The technology is basically here today,� Vostrez said in the interview. “Now, we’ve got to see how it can be applied to the problem we have on the highway.�

The project is being undertaken as an experiment by Caltrans, the federal government, Etak Corp., a Silicon Valley manufacturer, and General Motors Corp., which, he said, expects to install such on-board navigational systems soon.

Late next year or early in 1989, Vostrez said, a field test will be conducted using about 30 vehicles whose electronic navigators will be tied, probably by cellular telephones, to the traffic operations center.

If successful, California may be on the road to taking a high-tech bite out of traffic congestion. But Vostrez is uncertain how the California motorist will take to the electronic navigator.

“The big question is acceptance,� Vostrez said, noting that automatic cruise control devices first were met with skepticism years ago by drivers and now are accepted as standard equipment.

It Will Be Needed

“If a system can really help a guy navigate through these difficult (congestion) waters, he’s going to need it.�

The Deukmejian transportation program, which would be financed by voter approval of $2.3-billion worth of bonds, also calls for expansion of existing efforts to manage traffic and reduce congestion.

One element, launched in Los Angeles last year, involves a portable radio station mounted on a truck operated by state highway employees to broadcast traffic information at 530 on the AM band to motorists.

For example, if a major crash occurs on the heavily traveled Ventura Freeway, the incident is reported to the traffic operations center, which alerts the radio station operator, who broadcasts predetermined alternate route information to approaching motorists up to three miles away.

The governor’s program proposes deployment of additional mobile radio transmitters ($6,500 each) along with a traffic operations center in San Francisco. Similar centers are also envisioned for San Diego and Sacramento, department officials said.

Sensors Alert Operators

Similarly, sensors buried in the pavement of Los Angeles-area freeways for years have provided the operations centers with information on how fast or slow traffic may be moving on a given roadway. If, for instance, no traffic is moving in a certain lane, center operators are alerted, can investigate the cause and take appropriate action.

Deukmejian wants to expand the sensor system and add more closed-circuit television coverage to additional freeways. The Santa Monica Freeway has been under the observation of 14 television cameras for about 10 years.

In addition, plans call for expanded use of so-called highway SWAT teams, roving highway department employees who can be dispatched to help eliminate the causes of congestion, such as a stalled vehicle, as well as moveable message signs and development of beefed up incentives for ride sharing.