If you drive in State College you know that traffic jams are more of a problem than they used to be.
If you’ve had enough of sitting and waiting, a new online feature can help.
Beginning just last week, PennDot began live-streaming images from its traffic cameras at 11 locations in the State College area — including eight cameras on the heavily-traveled Atherton Street corridor. That means you can see what the roads are like before you leave the house.
Anyone with a computer or a phone can login at www.511pa.com.
The new feature is PennDot’s latest attempt to help smooth out those traffic bumps in the road.
“We have worked on this initiative for a couple of years and largely, it’s been to make sure we’re improving traffic information, both internally and for our customers,” PennDOT deputy press secretary Eric Waters-Trasatt says. “It helps everyone travel more efficiently. We’ve been hearing from people for a while that having streaming video would be a benefit to visualize the situation.”
The video streams are a major upgrade over PennDOT’s previous traffic feature, which only allowed users to pull up still photographs.
Not surprisingly, the feature has had some issues. Some of the video streams move slowly, and a couple still aren’t active. This is a particularly a problem at intersections close to campus, such as where Atherton Street intersects with both Beaver and College Avenue.
“As far as any difficulties, with any new technology you’ve got to go through testing to make sure they work out but we’re pleased with being able to offer these services,” Waters-Trasatt says. “Some [of the streams] are periodically not working but we’re looking at the bandwidth issue and we should have most of them up and working however.”
Aside from working out some technology glitches, PennDOT’s biggest concern is safety.
Since the streams can be viewed on smart phone apps PennDot warns that the traffic cameras are not meant to be watched while driving.
“Safety is our top concern and we encourage our customers to never use while driving,” Waters-Trasatt says. “We stress to customers to ‘know before you go.’ Part of why we have the stream is so people can pre-plan.”
POPULAR STORIES:
Penn State Football: For The Nittany Lion Defense, It Takes 11 To Get To 198
Penn State ROTC Honors POWs at Somber Vigil
Penn State/UMass Live Blog:Penn State Wins 48-7
Police Launch Pedestrian Safety Outreach Program Following Fatal Accident
Centre County Report: Penn State Athletics Off to Strong Start This Fall
BOT Discusses Freeh Report Resolution in Executive Session
